'Conviction' Over Conviction! Yerawada Inmate Satish Panwar Dreams Of Watching Daughter Turn Grandmaster

Last Updated:March 12, 2026, 16:20 IST

The 31-year-old Panwar is a murder convict, currently out on bail as the Bombay HC hears his appeal, and is one among the many who have been saved by the grace of the game.

Satish Panwar, the inmate who has spearheaded the Yerawada prison’s showings at the Intercontinental Chess Championship for prisoners, has been a major force driving the sport inside the confines of the Pune penitentiary.

The 31-year-old Panwar, who has a FIDE rating of 1587 in Rapid, is a murder convict, currently out on bail as the Bombay High Court hears his appeal, and is one among the many who has been saved from spiraling out of control by the grace of the game.

“Prison is not a happy place. People arrive there after the darkest chapters of their lives, and within those walls the mind often drifts toward negative thoughts," he elucidates.

“If not for chess, I might have slipped further down the wrong path. The game gave me purpose – and a positive direction."

Panwar, who hails from Barshi’s Vairag village, was all of 18 years of age and a student of Civil Engineering back in the year 2014 when he was picked up alongside seventeen others for a murder of a distant relative amid a family feud.

“That was a dark period of my life," he reflected on the testing time.

“I had played chess in school, and taken part in some competitions, but looking back, I realise my game was crude — mostly about capturing the opponent’s pieces," he said of his skill set on the board ahead of his stint behind bars.

“I was lodged in Barshi Sub Jail and later Solapur District Jail between 2014 and 2019, as an undertrial. Both jails offered chess as a recreational activity, and I kept playing my same crude game with fellow inmates," Pawar said.

All eighteen of the accused were sentenced to life in 2019, and after the conviction, Pawar was moved to the high-security Yerawada Central Prison in Pune.

Pawar was granted parole for good behaviour in the year 2021 as the Maharashtra government released hordes of undertrials and convicts on emergency bail to ease overcrowding during the COVI-19 pandemic in 2021.

During Pawar’s two-month period outside the prison, he got hitched and was drafted in for the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC)-run social stewardship programme titled ‘Parivartan: Prison to Pride’ in jails across the country, spearheaded by Chairman Shrikant Madhav Vaidya.

Pawar was part of a six-member-team selected for the Intercontinental Online Chess Championship for Prisoners, organised by FIDE and the Cook County Sheriff’s Office in Illinois in 2022, as GM Abhijit Kunte, who was he mentor of the program, roped in trainer Ketan Khaire to coach the unit.

“He was a natural pick given his basic grasp of the game. He was among six players selected for advanced training, where we introduced them to tactics, openings, middlegames and endgames."

“Khaire sir and his team gave us books, made us understand theory. It completely changed my game. I started thinking strategically and learned to not get distracted," says Pawar.

The unit from Yerawada bagged bronze in the 2022 event and went on to better their performance in the subsequent year winning a gold medal. The team slid to fourth in 2024 before reclaiming the top spot in the following year, despite Pawar being released on bail.

The Bombay HC granted Pawar bail in the year 2024 and he participated in a FIDE Rapid tournament in Pune where he got the better of as many as four players to send a spike in his rating.

Father to a daughter, Pawar, looks to improve on his rating and skill over the board, but acknowledges that his duties as a parent come first and foremost, and dreams of watching his little girl earn the illustrious Grandmaster norm in the future.

“I must support my family, and look after our construction and earthmover business. Competitive chess demands hours of practice. So I play on my phone, carry a portable board, and coach local kids."

“At the age of 1, my daughter is already playing with chess pieces, treating them as toys and ‘putting them to sleep’. That’s a good beginning… I am not sure how high I will go in my FIDE rating, but my dream is to see her becoming a grandmaster," he concluded.

News sports chess 'Conviction' Over Conviction! Yerawada Inmate Satish Panwar Dreams Of Watching Daughter Turn Grandmaster

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