A hard life: After 23 years in prison I have accepted my fate

Central jail’s longest serving prisoner yearns for his family.

KARACHI:

Sikandar Ali Sheikh has been in jail for so long that it has started to seem to him that he was born there.

He wasn’t, but for someone who has spent 23 years behind bars - the prime of his life taken away by prison cells and closed padlocks - he can be forgiven for having nothing but a blurred memory of the past.

The man who, according to Karachi Central Jail officers, has been at the jail the longest claims every day is a struggle. “It has been difficult,” he said, allowing a smile to cross his face. “They say a day in prison is equal to a thousand years. I agree.”

Having spent more than two decades in a cell, the inmate says he has missed out on many important family events; the funerals of his parents and sister, the wedding of his children and the birth of his grandchildren. He claims he couldn’t be there for these moments because of a misunderstanding 23 long years ago.

While a lesser man would let the prison consume him, Sheikh appears neither depressed nor miserable. Clad in a dark blue shalwar kameez with a red topi on his shaven head, his imposing six-foot frame appears almost friendly. He puts on a cheerful front. “I have accepted my fate,” he explains. “I was 35 when I was brought here in 1991. Now I am 58.”

New to prison

In the early days, Sheikh recalls that they would get just ‘sookhi roti’ along with lentils and strands of hair could often be found in it. There were no bathrooms, and prisoners would use plastic bags or cloth to dispose off their faeces. There was no greenery, no trees in or around the premises.

There were no telephones so he would write letters to his wife. “She could not read so my five-year-old son would read out the letters to her.” This son, he says, was also the one who would write back in broken Sindhi.

At the time, his nights were spent crying and remembering the young family that was taken away from him. The days went by making caps and other accessories out of beads and pearls.

In prison, Sheikh claims of meeting former President Asif Ali Zardari frequently when he was a prisoner and chatting with him. “Zardari sahib is said to be a friend of his friends but he forgot about me when he became the president,” said Sheikh. “He had promised me that he would get me out of here.”

He has also shared many evening teas with Sindh Assembly speaker, Agha Siraj Durrani. He has also seen notorious criminals, such as Ajmal Pahari, roaming around the prison, but has never spoken to them.

He has witnessed no murders inside the jail but has seen men embroiled in bloody fights everyday over petty issues such as who would be the first one to make tea or warm up the food.

Music, art or even computer classes in the jail never interested him. “Outside, I had studied till the fifth grade but I can still manage to read the Urdu newspaper as well as the Holy Quran,” he says with pride. Despite the tough early years, he has never tried to escape, and no such thoughts have occurred either. “A runaway person has no life,” he said. “I have never thought about running away.”

The new breed of criminals upsets him and so does the glorifying of crime. “I meet youngsters in prison who proudly claim that they have murdered 20 people. Others, who are released on bail, end up behind bars again 10 days later, caught doing the same crimes.”

In all these years, his only belongings in the jail have been four pairs of shalwar kameez , two pairs of sandals, and some books. The calendar does not interest him. “Only those who have court hearings keep track of the date,” he says.

Being the longest-serving prisoner has its perks too. Jail officials don’t make him work. They let him do what he wants to. “I sometimes feel like a monkey in the zoo,” he says, his sense of humour coming to the fore. “Prisoners, especially the militants, often come to see me as they want to see ‘ke sub se purana qaidi kaun hai? [who is the longest serving prisoner?]’.”

Survival and relative comfort

Seeing others lose their minds after spending time in prison, Sheikh decided that that was a fate he wanted to avoid. His solace has been religion. He spends his time praying and walking on the pavement inside his barrack. He never made any friends. The little time that remains, he likes to spend it watching the news and cricket matches.

His barrack, Security Ward Seven, has a couple of rooms, hens flutter in its courtyard and there is a separate area for laundry. He shares a room with three other men, where they have their own television, a stove for warming food and plastic bowls and utensils. In the corner of the room, a curtain conceals the bathroom.

23 years ago

Sheikh, once a cattle herder, moved to Karachi from Larkana in the late 80s with his family. In 1991, he was accused and convicted of kidnapping a man within the jurisdiction of the Gulberg police station. After a year, the court announced its verdict; life imprisonment and a death sentence.

“I was not involved,” he says. His reply curt, not wanting to talk much about the incident that defined his life. He claims the police arrested him instead of a known criminal that shared his first name. An appeal in the high court later saw the death sentence converted to a second life imprisonment.

Sheikh recalls that when he was arrested, his wife was pregnant with their third child, his daughter was five and his son three. His brother and father helped the family that he never had a chance to raise. However, contrary to Sheikh’s claim, which was seconded by the jail guards, death sentences were not awarded for kidnapping in 1992. Hence, while the life imprisonment sentence may have been due to the kidnapping, the second sentence, of death, would have been for another crime.

Taking on the outside world again

Though maximum imprisonment of a life sentence is 25 years, jail officials say that with compensation and fines, Sheikh still has four years and eight months more to go before he is released.

Sheikh is not afraid to one day come out as a free man into a world which has changed immensely, and the prospect of going back to an almost estranged family does not daunt him either.

“My family has not changed,” he insists. “Whenever I talk to my children, all they ask is ‘Baba kab aao gay? [Father, when will you come home?]’,” he says. “I have lived here for a long long time.”

However, regular family visits have become much less frequent; one visit a year by his wife, while his children come round once every three months. “I stop my wife from coming here because she keeps crying,” he said. “And when she does, I feel helpless. I am sure she continues to love me.”

The first thing he will do when he is released will be to visit his parent’s grave in Larkana, and then he will visit his family.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 21^st, 2014.