Six caught in police dawn raid
POLICE caught six escaped prisoners in a dawn raid on a hut built in a highly unlikely place in Suva - mangrove swamps.
This happened while the convicts were fast asleep in a drunken stupor.
The story was published in The Fiji Times of June 5, 1980.
The prisoners, who were apparently drunk on methylated spirit and the effects of inhaling petrol fumes, were taken by complete surprise and were awakened very early in the morning by police officers.
The six captured prisoners all appeared in Suva Court to answer to charges of escaping from lawful custody.
Police public relations officer, Inspector Mohammed Shameem, said that the prisoners were hiding in a make-shift hut that was made by a ‘group of runaway boys’.
The hut first came to the attention of the police because a picture of it had appeared in The Fiji pTimes previously.
The boys who erected the hut claimed in their story that they had been chased from home and had formed a ‘commune in the swamps’.
“But we remembered a similar hut which we had raided some time ago when there were a lot of prison escaped,” Inspector Shameem said.
The six escapees were spotted coming out of the hut recently.
A few days before the raid, police received tip off from one of the residents in the area that there were several prisoners hiding in the hut.
Deputy Superintendent Jag Nandan, the officer in charge of the Central Police Station said Inspector Naipote Vere, who was in charge of getting all escapees back behind bars, led a squad of eight policemen and trackers dogs in the 4am raid.
“The whole place was stinking of methylated spirit, which prisoners had been drinking, and petrol which they had been sniffing,” Inspector Shameem said.
“The whole place could have been easily set alight by a match.”
Police had to shake the escapees and other occupants of the hut so they could wake up.
The others were asked to stand aside while the six escapees were handcuffed and led away.
Meanwhile, police also kept a watch on an escape route along the foot of the Mr Korobaba range.
The route was marked with red paint to show the way to freedom to all escapees from Naboro Prison Farm.