JMM and Congress leaders at a dharna demanding Soren’s release in front of the Ranchi commissioner’s office on Thursday. (PTI)

New Delhi, Dec. 7: It wasn’t so much the life term his father had received that had Hemant Soren worried.

Shibu Soren may have led a decades-long struggle for Jharkhand statehood but at 62, he is hardly in the pink of health. Hemant was concerned about how his father might shape up to the task of breaking stones.

“How can he be expected to do hard labour at this age?” the agitated son had said outside the court after the sentencing on Tuesday.

Both father and son can breathe easy.

Soren, who received a year’s rigorous imprisonment for criminal conspiracy, concurrently with the life term for the murder of his former secretary Shashinath Jha, has been spared physical labour for now.

“We have advised the Tihar director-general to shelve the RI for the time being because of his heart condition,” said Dr Alok Mehta, member of a team of doctors who examined the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) chief at Tihar Jail.

Jail officials said the physical labour might continue to be put off even after Soren is declared fit so that there is no “untoward incident”.

Soren, who had been kept under observation at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences for two days, is still complaining of chest pain and has been advised to walk twice a day, Mehta said.

So, for the past two days, Soren has been getting up from bed at 6 am and asking the guards to unlock him. He has been taking his second walk after an afternoon nap.

Jail sources said Soren walks round the central courtyard without taking any interest in the other inmates. The new occupant of cell number 3 has, however, aroused curiosity among neighbouring detainees.

“Yesterday morning during his walk, Satish Sharma called out to him and Soren stopped and chatted for a couple of minutes,” a jail official said.

Satish, of “tandoor murder” fame, has been in cell number 2 for two years. He is on death row for killing wife Naina Sahni, whose body he had stuffed in a tandoor (oven).

The walks are about the only time when the semblance of a smile can be seen crossing Soren’s face, jail officials say. “He has been advised to take deep breaths while walking,” Mehta said.

With the physical labour put off, the deep breaths may just be coming naturally.