Bangalore: Jayalalithaa, former Tamil Nadu chief minister, followed the Supreme Court’s directive and issued a statement on Friday evening, October 17 urging the adoring workers of her party, the AIADMK, to remain calm and not resort to violence, as they have in recent weeks. “I request all to maintain peace, law and order and not give anyone a chance to criticize”, she said in the statement.

Jayalalithaa is likely to be released from the Bangalore Central Prison, where she has been incarcerated since her conviction on September 27. It is expected that, today, on Saturday afternoon October 18 she will be released, since administrative orders for the release of the AIADMK leader were not issued till the 6 pm deadline on Friday.

After she was granted bail, on Friday October 17, the celebrations began outside the prison premises began; Over 1000 Jayalalitha supporters thronged the area around the Parappana Agrahara prison, well before police reinforcements could arrive.
    
Supporters set off fire crackers and distributed sweets to celebrate the release of Amma on bail. Eventually around 1600 police personnel were deployed to secure the prison perimeter at 4.30 pm.

A similar amount of security is expected to be in place at the prison on Saturday afternoon when Jayalalithaa is released on bail and taken to the special purpose HAL airport to be flown to Chennai.

Jayalalithaa’s lawyers who armed  with the Supreme Court order granting bail to the former Tamil Nadu chief minister are expected to approach the trial court where she was convicted for release orders today morning.