Innocent man suffers 11 yrs in jail

PUNE: On Saturday, 45-year old Armogam Munnaswami Kounder walked out of Pune's Yerawada central jail as a free man after spending 11 years in prison on charges of raping and murdering a six-year-old girl. The irony of this momentous day in his life was that he had always been innocent but was wrongly framed by the police.

Kounder was released from the Yerawada prison on the directives of the Bombay High Court which took cognisance of a suicide note left by police inspector Iqbal Bargir in 2000 who said that Kounder was not guilty of the crime he was charged with.

The court order said that Kounder, who at the time of his arrest in 1995 was employed as an illiterate sweeper with the Brihan Mumbai Municipal Corporation, was suspected to have been wrongly implicated in the crime.

"I feel extremely angry about what has happened; but bygones are bygones. Nothing can be done about the past," he told TOI.

Throughout Saturday Kounder roamed the streets of Pune and was at a complete loss. He then took the help of social worker and advocate Asim Sarode to take a train to Vellore in Tamil Nadu to try and reunite with his wife and son in village Tirupathur.

During the last 11 years, Kounder had lost all contact with his family, who he said worked as casual labourers.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/2181224.cms