Monica Bedi's father

When Monica Bedi's father went to meet her in jail today, his jaws dropped — his dear daughter was clad in a cotton salwar kameez.

Monica's explanation that cotton was best suited for the dry and dusty cell that was now her home could not placate Papa.

Prem Kumar Bedi flew down from Norway to meet Monica — accused in a passport forgery case — after four years at the Chanchalguda women's prison.

After the salwar-kameez shock, another blow was in store for the 65-year-old shop-owner from Oslo.

He had got bottles of imported shampoo, oil and other cosmetics for his daughter, who used to be a Bollywood starlet before moving to Portugal with her gangster-companion Abu Salem. But the jail authorities put their foot down.

They, however, let Monica take the bunch of lipsticks and facial creams that her father had brought her. Sweets, ice cream and fruits, too, made their way past the bars.

"We cannot allow such things, which might be misused by prison inmates," said a senior prison official, who kept watch over the father and daughter as they spoke for over 40 minutes in the visitors' hall.

That his daughter retains her sense of humour despite the harrowing time in jail has given Prem Kumar Bedi a reason to smile. "It is all her own making as she chose that path despite our caution and advice," he reportedly told his brother Purushottam after coming out of the prison.

A CBI-designated court gave Monica's father permission to meet her after the investigating agency's counsel, T. Venkataramana, gave consent to his petition.

Monica has been in the Hyderabad jail since November 12, pending the hearing in the passport case.

The court has rejected her bail application and issued summons to the CBI to produce Salem at the earliest in Hyderabad. The court extended Monica's judicial custody for the fifth time till March 27.