 | | Gandhigiri: Laxman Gole, who was moved by Mahatma Gandhi’s autobiography, is inspiring his fellow inmates to read it. file pic | NASIK: Reading the autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi led to a change of heart in a 30-year-old prisoner who confessed to his crime before a judge and got his jail term reduced by two years.
Laxman Gole, who hailed from Lahan village in Nanded district and ran computer classes in the suburban Vikhroli, had 19 cases of extortions, threatening and attacks filed in Chirag Nagar police station in Ghatkopar, Mumbai.
While he was acquitted him in 18 cases, the court sentenced him to four years and two months’ imprisonment in one. Following his change of heart, the Vikhroli court judge reduced Gole’s imprisonment by two years.
Now Gole, who has spent 16 months in Mumbai and Nasik jail, will be a free man after four months, jail superintendent Ashok Rane said.
During his Nasik jail stay, Gole wrote to Mumbai Sarvodaya Mandal and Gandhi Book Centre expressing his desire to read autobiography of Gandhiji. They provided him books in April 2007. Gole, after maintaining his routine jail work, started reading books on Gandhian philosophy and decided to follow the Gandhian path of truth and non-violence.
After undergoing a change of heart himself, Gole is now inspiring other inmates to read Gandhiji’s
autobiography. | 
