Murder convict Vijay Palande shifted from Thane jail over security concerns
Murder convict Vijay Palande, who had been held at Thane Central Jail since 2012, has now been shifted to Navi Mumbai's Taloja jail over concerns that other inmates could attack him.
The Free Press Journal, on July 22, had reported that the jail authorities had requested the sessions court to change his jail over security concerns.
"Last month the court gave us permission to shift Palande to a different jail. Initially, he was shifted to Arthur Road jail in Mumbai on August 10 but on the same day Palande was shifted to Taloja jail as Arthur Road jail was already overcrowded," confirmed a senior officer of Maharashtra prisons.
Most of the prisons including Thane Central jail, Arthur Road jail and Byculla are facing chronic overcrowding. The actual capacity of Thane jail is only 1,100, whereas around 3,300 inmates – under trial and convicts (both male and female) – are imprisoned there. Similarly, the actual capacity of Arthur Road jail is 800 inmates whereas there are 3000 prisoners.
The high-profile inmate has been giving a tough time to prison authorities by filing multiple Right to Information (RTI) requests to know the minute details of ongoing cases registered against him at various police stations of Mumbai.
Besides this, Palande had also been teaching trial-delaying tactics to other Thane jail inmates by filing RTI requests to defend themselves facing mandatory prison terms in most serious crimes like murder, rape, etc.
The officer said that Palande had developed differences with his inmates and there were concerns that that may result in an attack on the murder convict. That’s the reason he was kept in a separate cell at Thane jail before being shifted.
Palande, a convict in a double murder case is yet to face trial in other brutal murder cases that hit national headlines, is a master of disguise.
He jumped parole and underwent plastic surgery to change his look and allegedly killed two others. Palande is believed to a close associate of gangster Santosh Shetty with whom he worked in Thailand to gather info on industrialists for extortion purposes.
Chances are that Palande will attend the court proceedings through video conferencing as it will take a lot of time to reach the sessions court in south Mumbai from Taloja jail.
Taloja jail has a big anda cell with hundred rooms where high security prisoners including Abu Salem, who recently got convicted by a special TADA court in the 1993 Mumbai serial bomb blasts case, are kept.