NEW DELHI: Former Youth Congress leader Sushil Sharma, who walked out of jail on Friday night after spending more than 23 years behind bars for killing his wife Naina Sahni in a fit of rage, wants the younger generation to work on anger management so that no one commits a crime like he did.
“I regret what I did. Had I learnt the art of anger management at that time, I would be living a normal life,” he said in an interview.
Sharma also appeared to blame his possessiveness for his wife, who he suspected of having an illicit relationship, for the crime. “Extreme possessiveness should not be there in any person.”
In 1995, Sharma killed his wife and tried to dispose of the body by stuffing it into a tandoor at a central Delhi hotel.
Seated in the middle-class home of his parents and sporting a tilak on the forehead, Sharma said he was alarmed at the road rage incidents in Delhi.
“Road rage is one thing which is affecting a large population of Delhi and I must say this is the most neglected thing. We don’t educate students or youngsters who apply for driving licences about anger management,” he said.
Sharma said the traffic police should be sensitised about road rage so that violent incidents on the city’s roads can be curbed. He said he had written a paper on it which he would submit to the Delhi Traffic Police.
The then-budding politician travails his parents went through because of his actions. “My parents suffered a lot all these years. They came to meet me in jail during the weekly meetings and never lost hope,” he said, his eyes welling up.
Sharma completed his Ll.B from Tihar jail, which he used to give legal aid to fellow prisoners. Asked about his days in jail, Sharma said: “Jail is nothing less than a trailer of death. But this is one place where you realise your inner strength without the presence of your near and dear ones. Jail makes you a good citizen and a reformed man.”
His own marriage went downhill, and, now, Sushil Sharma vouches for counselling before couples tie the nuptial knot. Sharma believes that even strained relationships have a scope of improvement and a little counselling can change everything. “All young couples should be roped in for a three-month marriage counselling sessions so that they know each other’s compatibility before they enter into relationship formally. This eases the pressure on both the boy and the girl and they get to know each other better,” the former Congress leader says. Sharma knows it well: His deep regret of his crime and the punishment that followed after he in a fit of rage, shot his wife Naina Sahni, dismembered her body and burn it in a ‘tandoor’ (clay oven) way back in 1995.
That gruesome act was triggered by his suspicion of his wife’s alleged relationship with a friend. He had spent 23 long years behind bar before the Delhi High Court on Friday allowed him to walk free. “Due to the lifestyle now, couples these days have frequent fights. With the help of marriage counsellors, these couples would at least be enlightened about the nitty-gritty of relationships. For a healthy relationship, both of them must understand the importance of respecting each of their parents and love them whole-heartedly,” he asserts.
Vipassana sessions inside the prison and its practice helped Sharma. “I gained lot of strength from that and it gave me courage to help people and understand their pain.” “Ninety per cent of the people in jail are the ones who are not criminals. A mere 10 per cent are the ones who are habitual offenders and have no scope of reformation.
I have myself analysed it that those people who were sentenced to imprisonment for 14 years, never committed crime after going out. Jail makes you a good citizen. It is rather a place where the people learn discipline and makes you a reformed man,” Sharma says, elaborating on his experience of his stint in prison. On the question about his plan to enter into politics again, Sharma claims it nowhere figures in his priorities. “No.
I have no plan or intention to join politics as it is not my cup of tea. I now have only one agenda and that is to serve my parents and spend time with them as they are the ones who have suffered because of no fault of theirs.” A course of Art of Living, and religion, hopefully, will help him to begin afresh. Far from his heady days of politics, Sharma is now used to spending at least two hours daily for meditation and recitation of verses of the Geeta and the Ramayana.