Lack of staff exposes safety at Colvale jail

Only one guard was on duty at NDPS block where the fight broke out last weekend

Against the sanctioned six jail guards, the NDPS block has four. When a verbal argument escalated into a fight on Sunday, and no helping hand to Naik, he raised an alarm in a desperate bid to summon his colleagues from other blocks to control the situation

Apart from the fact that the recent scuffle between two rival groups of undertrials in the Colvale Central Jail exposed the security system yet again, purported lack of staff manning the blocks has triggered a fresh debate over the government’s seriousness to tackle recurring problems within the premises.

Three inmates – two of whom were Nigerian nationals – sustained injuries in a fight that broke out over a petty issue last weekend. Sources said the NDPS block, where the incident occurred, had only one jail guard Mahesh Naik on duty while the rest allegedly failed to report to work.

“Against the sanctioned six jail guards, the NDPS block has four. On Sunday night, the block had three absentees while only one was on duty,” a jail official told The Goan.

When a verbal argument escalated into a fight and no helping hand to Naik, he raised an alarm in a desperate bid to summon his colleagues from other blocks to control the situation.

Sources also state that since many blocks face water shortage, the jail officials are forced to keep some cells unlocked after 6 pm by when the gates have to be mandatorily shut. On Sunday, the inmates were freely roaming till around 8 pm when the fight reached from the first to the ground floor of the NDPS block.

The Prisons Department is conducting an internal inquiry with Mapusa police already investigating a case of