Gawli back in Ngp jail after Covid treatment

NAGPUR: Mumbai gangster Arun Gawli, who was infected with Covid-19 and admitted to the government-run medical college and hospital in Nagpur, was shifted back to the central jail there on Friday evening after he responded to treatment.

Five inmates of Nagpur Central Prison, including Gawli, tested positive for the coronavirus on Wednesday. The Mumbai underworld don was later shifted to the government hospital after his condition deteriorated.

Jail superintendent Anup Kumre said that Gawli and the four other infected inmates were treated by the prison doctors initially. However, Gawli was shifted to the trauma centre of the government hospital when his condition worsened.

After undergoing numerous tests, he was shifted back to the central prison on Friday, informed Dr Sajal Mitra, dean of the medical college and hospital. Known as “Daddy” among his supporters, Gawli, 66, was active in the Mumbai underworld since the 1970s and engaged in a bloody gang war with the absconding mafia don Dawood Ibrahim till the 1990s. Gawli was convicted in 2012 for the murder of Shiv Sena leader and corporator Kamlakar Jamsandekar, and sentenced to life imprisonment, which he is currently serving at Nagpur Central Prison.

In 1997, Gawli floated a political party, Akhil Bharatiya Sena, and was elected member of the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly in 2004. His wife Asha also led the party while Gawli was in jail, while his daughter Geeta Gawli is a corporator from Byculla in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). Nagpur Central Prison houses around 2,250 prisoners and is considered sensitive for the transmission of Covid-19. In June and July 2020, over 300 prisoners and some staff had tested positive. “In case any prisoners display symptoms, we test them for Covid-19. Accordingly, 10 prisoners were tested, of whom five were positive,” Kumre said.