Youth Incorporated Magazine

At just 14, National Child Award winner Ayush Kishore from Bhopal has already set an example for people of all ages to follow. Ayush has decided to donate Rs 27,850 from his scholarship prize money as fines of 14 prisoners who were convicted with murder charges.

He received a cash prize of Rs. 10,000 from the President’s award, and an additional Rs. 28,000 from his school after being announced as an all-rounder. “He asked me so many questions about jail and prisoners and showed his willingness to do something for them,” said Ayush’s mother.

Ayush was disturbed by the prisoners’ inability to pay even a fine of Rs. 2000, and that’s when he decided to help him. In January 2018, for Republic Day, he used his money to set four prisoners free, who were in jail for a decade. “They were so happy to meet their families. Their joy served as inspiration for me. I decided to help more such prisoners. I met a prisoner who had completed his punishment two years ago but was still in jail. Seeing him I decided to help as many as I could. Many of them had fines of Rs 6,000”, said Ayush.

One of the prisoners named Srijan Singh was abandoned by his family, and did not have anyone to help him out, which sent him into a state of depression. He paid most of his fine working in the prison, but still had an outstanding of Rs. 5,000 which Ayush cleared.

This Independence Day, he is donating Rs. 27,850 from a scholarship grant towards freeing 14 prisoners from jails across Madhya Pradesh. They will be released on Independence Day itself. According to reports, twelve of the inmates are from Indore jail while two are from the Bhopal jail. Like Srijan, all of them are murder convicts who have completed their prison terms but do not have the money to pay their fines.

In 2016, when a constable had died during the SIMI jailbreak in Bhopal, Ayush recalls seeing a newspaper report that said how the constable’s daughter was slated to be married shortly after her father’s demise. At the time, he had donated Rs 10,000 to the constable’s daughter.