Plan to change dreaded gangsters’ jails regularly
AIM To stop criminals from building a nexus. Proposal to be sent to state govt soon
LUCKNOW: After the sensational murder of gangster Prem Prakash Singh alias Munna Bajrangi inside Baghpat district jail, the UP prisons administration and reform services department are mulling over shifting dreaded jailed gangsters at regular intervals to stop them from building their nexus inside jails.
Bajrangi’s murder had exposed security lapses in jails as well as the influence of another gangster Sunil Rathi on Baghpat administration and its inmates.
Rathi, who was lodged at Baghpat jail for over a year, had allegedly shot Bajrangi dead on the morning of July 9 after getting a pistol and multiple cartridges inside the jail. “Although there is no such norm as of now, soon a proposal will be sent to the state government to consider changing jails of dreaded gangsters on routine basis every six months,” a senior jail official said, requesting anonymity.
He said the proposal of routine shifting of dreaded gangsters would help curb their nexus inside jails to a great extent.
He said on his recent visit to Baghpat jail after Bajrangi’s murder, he came to know that Rathi often made a flippant remark to inmates that if he stayed in a jail for 90 days, everything would go according to him on the 91st day. ( “90 din jis jail me mai reh gaya, toh 91 din wahan sab kuch mere hisaab se chalega”.
The official said initial probe into Bajrangi’s murder had already ascertained that Rathi, who is a murder convict and serving life imprisonment, enjoyed the extra privilege of getting food packets and other items of daily use from outside the Baghpat jail without court permission. He said the pistol and bullets used in Bajrangi’s murder were also suspected to have been smuggled into Baghpat jail through the same food packets.
He said Rathi was shifted to Fatehgarh central jail from Baghpat district jail on July 14 for the same reasons.
The official said the security review conducted by him in jails suggested that most of the mafioso –turned-politicians and other dreaded gangsters lodged in jails wielded a nexus and got privileged services from inmates as well as jail staff.
“The presence of such gangsters in a particular jail for very long also affects the mindset of other lowly criminals who often join their gangs as shooters for easy money and start committing crimes again,” he explained.