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| September 12, 2009 | Malaysian spiritual seeker released from Varanasi jail | | New Delhi: A Malaysian spiritual seeker, who landed
in a Varanasi jail for violating Indian immigration laws, has finally left for
home in Johor. After being released from jail on August 27, Lim Soon Seng was
waiting to obtain his exit certificate from the Foreigners Regional Registration
Office in Delhi to leave India. "I was shattered in prison. All I wanted to do
was to heal and help people but I went through some bad karma in India. There
were so many legal complications. "It placed so much stress on my family and me.
Now I am free and happy to go home and see my sister," The Star Online quoted
Lim as saying before his departure on a Malaysia Airlines flight for Kuala Lumpur.
A follower of the Krishna Consciousness movement, Lim of Johor landed on the ghats
of Varanasi in 2001. For the next six years he diligently renewed his visa as
he wandered in orange robes with sadhus and lived a life of solitude. But Lim's
spiritual sojourn turned into a nightmare when his passport expired in 2005 and
he failed to renew it. For the next 20 months, Lim, in his 50s, languished in
Varanasi jail, one of the most crowded and dreaded Indian jails where notorious
criminals are held. Lim was charged under Section 14 of the Foreigners Act, where
offenders can face a jail sentence of between six months and seven years. A German
diplomat, who visited the jail to meet a fellow citizen, came across Lim and notified
the Malaysian High Commission in Delhi about his predicament. Once the embassy
assured the local district magistrate that he would be repatriated to Malaysia
safely, Lim was released. | |
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