Boy born in Indian jail eventually bails mother after 19 years

A 50-year-old Indian woman has been released from prison, 19 years after she was granted bail. Vijai Kumari was convicted of murder - wrongfully she claimed. She was granted bail on appeal but she did not have the 10,000 rupees (£119, $180) she needed to post bail. Her husband abandoned her and no-one else came forward to help her. "I thought I'd die in prison," she says. "They told me in there that no one ever gets out."



She was pregnant when she went to jail. Four months later, her son Kanhaiya was born. "I sent him away when he got a bit older. It was hard but I was determined. Prison is no place for a young child," she says. So she stayed in prison all these years, lost in the system and forgotten. All she had to keep her going was a passport-size photograph of her son and his visits to her every three months.

Kanhaiya spent most of his childhood growing up at various juvenile homes. And he never forgot his mother. "I would think of her and cry," he says, speaking softly and with a lisp. "She was in prison, all alone. No-one else ever visited her. And my father turned his back on her." As soon as he turned 18, he was trained to work in a garment factory. And he began saving up to get his mother out. Eventually, he hired a lawyer. "Someone told me about him. He was surprised to hear about my mother's case."


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The lawyer took on his case and earlier this month, his mother was freed from prison. Judges expressed their shock at her situation and the "callous and careless" behaviour of the authorities. Kanhaiya and his mother plan to approach his estranged father and fight for their rights, including a share of the family property. But for now, they are taking in the present and trying to make up for all the time they have lost.