Over the next three years, Kanu was shuffled between jails as police feared his escape. “He had a remarkable reputation, the sharpest of them all,” a senior officer told me. In each jail, Kanu says he formed prisoner unions to protest against corruption – stolen rations, poor healthcare, bribery. In one prison, he led a three-day hunger strike. “There were clashes,” he says, “but I kept demanding better conditions”.
Kanu paints a stark picture of the overcrowding in Indian prisons, describing Jehanabad, which held more than double its intended capacity.
“There was no place to sleep. In my first barrack, 180 prisoners were crammed into a space meant for just 40. We devised a system to survive. Fifty of us would sleep for four hours while the others sat, waiting and chatting in the dark. When the four hours were up, another group would take their turn. That’s how we endured life inside those walls.”
In 2005, Kanu escaped during the infamous jailbreak.
“We were waiting for dinner when gunfire erupted. Bombs, bullets – it was chaos,” he recalls. “The Maoists stormed in, yelling for us to flee. Everyone ran into the darkness. Should I have stayed behind and been killed?”
Many doubt the simplicity of Kanu’s claims.
“It wasn’t as simple as he makes it sound,” said a police officer. “Why was dinner being prepared late in the evening when it was usually cooked and served at dusk, with the cells locked up early? That alone raised suspicions of inside collusion.”
Interestingly many of of the prisoners who escaped were back in jail by mid-December – some voluntarily, others not. None of the rebels returned.
When I asked Kanu whether he masterminded the escape, he smiled. “The Maoists freed us – it’s their job to liberate,” he said.
But when pressed again, Kanu fell silent.
The irony deepened as he finally shared a story from prison.
A police officer had once asked him if he was planning another escape.
“Sir, does a thief ever tell you what he’s going to steal?” Kanu replied wryly.
His words hung in the air, coming from a man who insists he had no part in planning the jailbreak.
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