A railway man with a higher calling, inquisitive Sunil Gupta was assisted by a familiar face when he secured a new job at Tihar. He only realized on the way out that it was arch criminal and high-functional psychopath, Charles Sobhraj, star of a prison where the cons ran the show. Gupta would also become a lifer, remaining for over three decades in a place where beatings were bread and butter, and breakfast was hunger strikes called by the wronged who were seeking rights.

This is a book of revelations – what is life like inside Asia’s largest prison? What happens when a man is hanged, but his pulse refuses to give up even after two hours? Did Nirbhaya’s rapist, Ram Singh, commit suicide, or was he murdered? For the first time we have a riveting account from an insider who breaks his silence about all he’s seen. How the most poorly judged and infamous in contemporary Indian history, the least known and most chastised criminals and conspirators in the subcontinent, the guilty and the framed – from Sobhraj via Afzal Guru – lived and died. Award-winning journalist Sunetra Choudhury has captured an extraordinary life lived in a most secretive institution.

A book of secrets and surprises, read Black Warrant for the most intimate and raw account of India’s judicial and criminal justice system.