UP jails have 60% more inmates than capacity

ALLAHABAD: At least 36 jails in the state, including five central jails, have 59.28 per cent more prisoners than the actual capacity, the Uttar Pradesh prisons administration and reform services has said in reply to an RTI query.

“Against the total capacity of 35,870 inmates, 60,504 prisoners (59.28% more), including convicts and under trials, are lodged in UP jails,” the department said in its reply.

Eight district jails – Agra, Firozabad, Mainpuri, Aligarh, Jhansi, Rampur, Lakhimpur Kheri, Etawah and Bulandshahr – have double the capacity while district jails of Mathura, Badaun and Shahjahanpur have thrice the capacity of prisoners lodged in it.

Lalitpur and Moradabad district jails have four times its original capacity of prisoners. Against the capacity of 108 prisoners, the district jail of Lalitpur has 458 inmates, including 154 convicts and 304 under trials.

Moradabad jail has 2,905 prisoners, including 331 convicts and 2574 under trials, against the capacity of 652 prisoners.

Similarly, against its maximum capacity of 529 inmates Badaun jail has 1,782 prisoners (396 convicts and 1,386 under trials) while Shahjahanpur jail has a maximum capacity of 511 prisoners but has 1,642 inmates (526 convicts and 1,116 under trials). Against the maximum capacity of 554, Mathura has 1,701 inmates including 318 convicts and 1,383 under trials.

According to RTI reply, around 1,155 inmates in UP jails died due to different reasons between 2015 and 2017.

Of the total count of prisoners who died between 2015 and 2017, 346 died in 2015 while 409 prisoners died in 2016 and 400 in 2017.