New Delhi, Feb. 18: Mosquitoes gave A. Raja a sleepless first night in his 15ft-by-10ft solitary cell in Tihar Jail, and the day started with a 6am queue for the roll call.

“Raja told us he could not sleep because of mosquito bites. He requested us to provide him a net,” a senior Tihar official said. “The former cabinet minister found it difficult to sleep on the mattress.”

The mattress, blanket and pillow had come from home, a DMK supporter said.

S.N. Gupta, the Tihar law officer, said: “We are not giving him any VIP treatment.”

After the roll call, the DMK leader took a walk inside Jail No. 1 and met 2G scam co-accused R. Chandolia, his former adviser, and Siddharth Behura, the former telecom secretary. The two have been in the jail since February 8.

R.K. Sharma, once a high-flying police officer posted in the PMO, is serving his sentence for the 1999 murder of journalist Shivani Bhatnagar in the same jail.

Raja, 47, returned to his cell and had tea, read newspapers and watched the news on TV. “He told us he would be acquitted soon as he is innocent. He blamed the media for tarnishing his image,” the Tihar official said. Raja “spent most of the day reading books and newspapers”, the official said. A lawyer, he borrowed books on law and literature from the jail library. Around 5pm, he queued up for another roll call.

Shahid Usman Balwa, promoter of Swan Telecom and another scam accused close to Raja, was sent to Tihar today for 13 days.