On the run for 40 years, Telangana convict becomes a teacher, wins award

In 1983, Sandula Veerana, was convicted for murder in Warangal district and was sentenced to life imprisonment. However, six months into the sentence, he was let out on parole for 30 days, which was later extended to mid-March 1984. 

Veerana was told to report back to prison by March 18, 1984, but he never did, for over 40 years.

A Special Task Force finally tracked him down and arrested him in May 2024.

In his years out of jail, Veerana found employment as a government school teacher and retired sometime in 2013. He even managed to win a Best Teacher award in 2004. 

Soon after his arrest, his wife Sandela Charamma, approached the Telangana High Court arguing the state had sat on its hands for 40 years and shouldn't get to punish him now.

However, the High Court, Justice Tangirala Madhavi Devi noted that the convict has been evading his sentence for 40 years, one month and 28 days. The court punished Veerana’s overstay with a forfeiture of his earned remission, about 27 days, and a three-year bar on parole or furlough, including on medical grounds. 

For Veerana, his teaching career worked against him. Staying employed and unnoticed for that long meant he had hidden his conviction to get the job, observed the court. The court also told the state to build a system for tracking parolees, since the current one had let a man disappear for four decades without anyone noticing.

Veerana is currently lodged at Cherlapalli Central Prison, where he will serve out the remainder of his life sentence.