Hoshiarpur Central Jail runs out of dope test kits for inmates

HOSHIARPUR :The prisons department had at the onset of 2018 made dope test mandatory for all undertrials and convicts on their arrival at any of the central or district jails in Punjab.

But the Hoshiarpur Central Jail’s authorities have run out of the kits required in conducting the dope test, it has been learnt. Though central jail superintendent Gurpal Singh Sarova claimed the kits went out of stock two months ago, sources revealed that the dope test plan for prisoners never took off here.

Sarova, however, said he had written to higher authorities demanding 200 such kits.

Additional deputy general of police (ADGP) (prison) IPS Sahota said the kits were to be purchased through health department tenders which have been floated. In order to curb drug menace in jails, the department had mooted dope test to collect exact data of drug addicts.

It was also planned that re-examination of the inmates would be carried out every six months to ascertain if they had consumed drugs during their confinement.

As per central jail superintendent Sarova, the addicts are sent to the rehabilitation centre in Kapurthala for specialised treatment if they are in the thick of drug addiction, otherwise detoxification is usually done at the local jail.

Sources say majority of persons booked under the Narcotic Drug and Psychotropic Substances Act are themselves addicted to drugs and need their daily dose unless treated for de-addiction. It has been observed that to fulfil their needs, many of them do not mind making their family members conduits. A number of cases have come to the fore where relatives of inmates are found trying to pass on the narcotics to latter in the jail.