Financial constraints and lack of support from friends or relatives are denying scores of undertrial prisoners the freedom offered to them in the State.
There are around 1,403 undertrial prisoners (UTP) languishing in the State jails, according to an estimate of the Kerala State Legal Services Authority, which started a campaign to identify the eligible ones for release from jails in the State.
The UTPs in Kerala include the 95 people who could not walk free despite the courts granting them bail. The inability to find sureties, who could guarantee their presence in courts when required, or the incapability to furnish the bail bond prescribed by the courts stand in between them and freedom.
