No bar behind bars as nexus thrives in jails
With promise of a crackdown by the minister on illegal activities in jails, focus is back on what, ideally, are reformation homes. HT brings out the extent and complexity of what’s wrong
CHANDIGARH: Hours after he was sworn in as minister for jails in April, Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa said he received a mobile phone call from an inmate of the Kapurthala Central Jail to congratulate him. The irony was hard to escape.
Randhawa said he asked the prisoner, a native of Gurdaspur district to which Randhawa belongs, about how he managed to get the mobile phone into the jail, and this is the reply he got: “It’s the easiest, simplest thing to manage inside jails.”
This was followed by a “crackdown” and a “clarion call” by the minister to officials that if mobile phones are found inside jails, action will be taken against the superintendent and his deputy too. Among the staff, only the superintendent can now use a mobile phone inside jail, say new directives.
But, within days of this tough posture, the department was left red-faced when, on May 29, prisoner Gobind Singh lodged in the Faridkot jail shot a three-minute video on a mobile threatening to kill chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh. This was shared on social media, and two inmates were booked for it.
Jails of Punjab, though, have a dubious history of gangsters posting pictures and giving threats on social media from behind bars. Mobile is one of the “most sought-after” facilities. Probes have exposed how criminals, because of connivance with jail staff, live with authority inside jails, right from making video calls to family and friends, to doing drugs.
SIGNALS LOST
Little seems to have been learnt from the Nabha jailbreak of November 2016, in which a group of armed men freed six dreaded prisoners from the ‘maximum security jail’. Those who freed them were in touch with the gangsters inside the jail.
In the past three years, more than 3,000 mobiles were recovered from 26 jails in Punjab. Of these, 1,543 were in 2017 alone. Nine jail staffers were suspended this year, but, such is the nexus between the staff and the inmates that it continues. In many cases, mobiles are thrown inside jails from residential areas located in the periphery. Every time, FIR is registered, but has evidently become routine.
As for signal jammers, only two jails, at Nabha and Kapurthala, have 3G jammers. There have been talks to install 4G jammers, and 5G is around the corner.
HOW IT HAPPENS
Central jails in Punjab have three-tier security system. Whenever a prisoner is brought in, he/she is checked at the main gate by jail staff and police; then, ‘intense frisking’ is done at the second gate by jail staff assisted by Punjab Ex-servicemen Corporation (PESCO) staff and Home Guards. Before the prisoner is lodged in a cell, frisking is redone by PESCO, Home Guards and the jail staff. Cameras have been installed, but body cavities such as the rectum are used to smuggle drugs since there are no body scanners.
Intelligence reports say drug cartels are being run from prisons. In 2016, a probe by Ferozepur Police said 19 inmates addicted to drugs had been getting regular supply from another group of inmates. The drugs were being sold inside at a premium. Money was deposited in the bank accounts of relatives of the imprisoned smugglers after consignments ordered on mobile phone would be delivered.
The minister acknowledges this. “Such a nexus exists inside jails. Amritsar jails have the maximum number of such reports. Breaking this chain is on our agenda,” he told HT.
WHAT’S THE WAY OUT
Former director general of police (DGP), prisons, Shashi Kant says, “Mobiles or drugs can be thrown into the jail from outside indeed. But these can be used inside only if jail authorities are hand in glove with users.” He mentions that Tihar Jail in Delhi has adopted a strategy to appoint police from outside — from Nagaland to guard the main gate, from Tamil Nadu to guard outer areas. “The motive is that prisoners and the local jail staff should not get acquainted with the guards,” said the former DGP.
Gangster-turned-activist Lakha Sidhana, who recently met the minister to give suggestions, said that those guarding the prisoners provide everything, right from cigarettes to chitta (‘white’ powder, heroin) to mobile phones. “For a bidi, staff charges Rs 200. Everything is available inside. You need to pay the staff,” he told the minister. A large number of prisoners are accused or convicts in drug cases, which aids this trade.
Senior officials of the department, who do not want to be named, say that “underpaid” PESCO staff and Home Guards easily get attracted to “offers”. “A PESCO personnel gets less than Rs 10,000 as monthly salary. As for the Home Guards, their union is so strong that if you take any action against them they start strikes. Providing facilities to criminals is earning them good money.”
Punjab houses approximately 23,000 prisoners, and there is a shortage of staff. Ideally, the ratio of prisoners and jail wardens should be 6:1, but in Punjab it is 9:1. The department is short of 700 wardens. Many officials also talk of “lack of facilities” for jail officials, who have separate cadre from that of Punjab Police. “We don’t have official cars. Superintendents have to use private vehicles as the cars we had have crossed their usable age. The last purchase of vehicles for jail staff was done in 1987!” rued a senior officers posted in Malwa region.
The jail officials are also underprivileged when it comes to their security. “The department expects us to have full control over criminals gangsters inside jails. When we tighten the noose around them, they threaten us. But, in the name of security, we have two cops from jail staff, who are not even trained to fire! Two options are left — put your security and family at risk, or shake hands with inmates,” a jail superintendent said.
In the last 14 months, the department has seen three different heads.