Satish Pawar, a 31-year-old serving a life sentence for murder, has found purpose in chess while incarcerated at Yerawada prison in Pune. He played a key role in his prison team's victories in international chess championships for inmates. Now out on bail, Pawar balances family life with coaching and improving his FIDE rating.
Satish Pawar was arrested in May 2014 at age 18, along with 17 others, for the murder of a distant relative stemming from a family rivalry in Vairag village, Barshi. In 2019, a court in Barshi sentenced them to life imprisonment. Pawar, who had pursued a civil engineering diploma before his arrest, describes that time as "a dark period of my life."
While held as an undertrial in Barshi Sub Jail and Solapur District Jail from 2014 to 2019, Pawar played chess recreationally, though he admits his early style was "crude — mostly about capturing the opponent’s pieces." After his conviction, he was transferred to Yerawada Central Prison in Pune, where chess remained a constant.
In 2021, during the second wave of Covid-19, Pawar received 60 days of parole for good behavior, a period he says "changed my life." He married during this time and later joined the Indian Oil Corporation's 'Parivartan: Prison to Pride' program, which promotes chess for inmate rehabilitation under Chairman Shrikant Madhav Vaidya.
Selected for the 2022 Intercontinental Online Chess Championship for Prisoners, organized by FIDE and the Cook County Sheriff’s Office in Illinois, US, Pawar trained under Grandmaster Abhijit Kunte and coach Ketan Khaire. Khaire noted, “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.” Pawar credits the training: “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.”
The Yerawada team earned bronze in 2022 and gold in 2023, with Pawar as a key member. In 2024, after Pawar received bail from the Bombay High Court, the team placed fourth, rebounding to first in 2025. Now with a FIDE rapid chess rating of 1587 after defeating four rated players in a 2025 Pune tournament, Pawar coaches over 200 inmates and local children while managing his family's construction and earthmover business. Father to a one-year-old daughter who plays with chess pieces, he dreams of her becoming a grandmaster. Pawar reflects, “Prison is not a happy place... If not for chess, I might have slipped further down the wrong path. The game gave me purpose – and a positive direction.”
