Overcrowded jails of Uttar Pradesh have emerged as Covid-19 hotspot. Every 71 jails of the UP are overcrowded up to 3 to 4 times its capacity which gives rise to unhygienic conditions and impossible to maintain social distance.
17 prisoners were found Corona positive in Aligarh jail and 128 in Fatehgarh jail. According to DG jail Anand Kumar, more than 140,000 prisoners were tested for corona in U.P’s 71 jails in which 7000 were found positive including jail staff.
Dr. Kafeel and Sharjil who were in jail for the protest of CAA told that the capacity of one cell is 40 in which more than 130 prisoners were confined. There is no social distancing in the cell.
Prashant Kumar, social activist to pioneer said that these jails including Aligarh, Mathura, Agra, etc are the hotspot of the COVID virus which is like a COVID live bomb and can be blast anytime if the government will not take any appropriate action.
The way district prisons are facing the increasing cases of coronavirus, the AMU student leaders who had been jailed had already warned about this new hotspot of the coronavirus. Sharjil Usmani and Farhan Zuberi, who were arrested for protesting the Citizenship Amendment Act, had already told about the overcapacity after coming out of jail.
Sharjeel Usmani told that the population and resources of the city were limited at the time when District Prison was built, now the city has expanded 10 times in the last 125 years, but the prison capacity is still limited. A cell can hold 40 to 45 captives, but in the current situation, there are more than 130 prisoners. This can be ignored in normal circumstances, but in the time of a pandemic, this capacity can be very disastrous. Farhan Zuberi, another student who came out of the prison said that there is a stone of the British era outside the cell, in which the capacity of the cell is mentioned as 45. In this way, the capacity of the district jail is fixed around 1150.
But currently, up to 4000 prisoners are in jail. This is a very complex situation and thus the government needs to pay serious attention towards this.
On the other hand, the jail administration claimed that they are doing their best to control the current situation. Jail Superintendent Alok Singh said that he made masks in the jail itself and the testing facility provided in the jail itself. In the current situation, full attention was taken for sanitization etc. Due to due diligence, the process of meeting the prisoners has also been stopped.