Jail Diary

On 25 July 2001, Bandit Queen Phoolan Devi who had become an MP by then was shot dead as she got out of her car near the gate of her New Delhi residence. Sher Singh Rana, Dheeraj Rana, and Rajbir were accused of the crime. Twenty-five-year-old Rana allegedly surrendered in Dehradun and confessed to the murder, saying he was avenging the deaths of twenty-two Kshatriyas at Phoolan’s hands in Behmai. Then he escaped from Tihar Jail in 2004 to reach Afghanistan via Bangladesh in order to reclaim the relics of the last Hindu ruler Prithviraj Chauhan from his grave there. He was captured again from Kolkata in April 2006 and sent to Rohini Jail in Delhi. He is still lodged there since the matter is sub judice. Jail Diary is Rana’s story in his own words. It begins on the day of his escape from Tihar and goes back and forth in time describing his childhood in small-town India, the beginning of his political career during college days, his induction into Eklavya Sena through which he was introduced to Phoolan, his days as a liquor vendor in Haridwar, and his nerve-wracking adventures as someone who broke one of the highest security prisons in Asia to pursue what, to his mind, was an act of honour.