Initial probe reveals multiple lapses in jail security

LUCKNOW : Multiple lapses at UP prisons came to fore during the initial probe into the May 14 Chitrakoot jail shoot-out, senior police officials, privy to the investigation, said on Sunday. They further said the incident had maligned the image of the UP prison administration department.

In the shoot-out, notorious shooter Anshu Dixit, after allegedly arranging a firearm inside the jail despite multiple checks, shot dead two gangsters Mukeem alias Kala and Meraj Ahmad alias Merajudeen before he himself was gunned down in police firing on Friday morning.

A senior prison official said the incident had as many as six lapses by the jail administration and that the prison headquarters had issued a circular to plug these lapses immediately.

“Anshu managing to get the pistol inside the jail suggests that materials sent for prisoners by their family and friends from outside are not properly checked as well as the jail administration is not taking proper use of baggage scanner, door-fitted metal detectors, handheld metal detectors and pole metal detectors before allowing any material inside the jail. Moreover, the presence of pistol with Anshu also suggests that the barracks and cells of notorious gangsters and criminals are not properly checked,” he said.

The official said Anshu first shot dead Meraj Ahmad who was sharing a cell with him at a high-security barrack and then walked into another barrack to gun down Mukeem. “This suggests that the jail personnel are not properly enforcing restrictions on prisoners’ movement from one barrack to another.

Moreover, no security personnel were deployed at high-security barracks,” he added.

He further said another lapse in the incident was that the closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras of high security barracks were also not operational and hence there was no footage of the shoot-out that could unravel the mystery behind it.