Siddharth Vashisht known as Manu Sharma, convicted for the 1999 Jessical Lal murder case was released on the 2nd of June.
Delhi Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal approved his release on the grounds of good behaviour.
Sharma walked out of Tihar Jail on the evening of the 1st of June, after Baijal had accepted the recommendation of the Sentence Review Board (SRB.)
The SRB met last month to discuss Manu Sharma’s release. The seven members of the SRB committee met on the 11th of May and decided on the release of 34 convicts, including Manu Sharma. Responding to the board’s decision, Jessica’s sister Sabrina Lal in the last month said she had forgiven Sharma and does not mind his release.
Prison officials said Sharma’s work inside the prison helped his case for release. He runs a non-government organisation, the Siddhartha Vashishta Charitable Trust, that started working in Tihar around eight years ago, and has funded the education of the children of prison inmates.
According to the SRB, any convict who has committed crimes like rape and murder, murder and robbery or murder in cases of terrorism and murder and completed 14 years in prison without remission could get an early release.
Manu Sharma is one such criminal, found guilty for murdering Jessica Lal, a celebrity barmaid at a party on the 30th of April in 1999.
She was shot by Manu Sharma at 2:00 A.M., for refusing liquor, as the bar ran out of alcohol.
The incident created a lot of anger amongst students and people demanded justice. Soon the case took a political turn, as the convict was the son of Venod Sharma, the then political leader of the Indian National Congress (INC.)
He was sentenced to life imprisonment on the 20th of December 2007.
