Security in UP jails once again came under scrutiny after a video showing dreaded criminals engaged in a drinking binge inside Rae Bareli jail and threatening someone went viral.
The video went viral on social media on Sunday night after which jail authorities suspended six prison personnel including jail superintendent Pramod Kumar Shukla. The other suspended officials were jailor Govind Ram Verma, assistant jailor Ramchandra Tiwari, head warden Lalta Prasad and wardens Ganga Ram and Shivmangal.
Surprisingly, the jail authorities shifted four criminals in the video to other jails three days back.
DIG, Jail, Umesh Srivastava was rushed from Lucknow to inquire into the incident by ADG (Prisons) Chandra Prakash. IG, Jail, is also likely to reach Rae Bareli to collect first hand information.
As per reports, after the video went viral, Rae Bareli District Magistrate Sanjay Kumar Khatri and Superintendent of Police Sujata Singh raided the jail late on Sunday night. The state government also shifted four inmates seen in the video to other jails. An FIR was lodged against them under various sections of the IPC and Prisons Act.
Principal Secretary, Home, Arvind Kumar said that as soon as the video surfaced, Rae Bareli jail premises was checked by the administration and four mobiles and a SIM card were recovered.
Sources said that the video was shot in barrack number 10 of Rae Bareli jail and it was recorded during Diwali. In the video, a criminal smoking a cigarette was seen talking to someone over a cell phone and asking him to pay Rs 10,000 to Rs 5,000 to jail officers for facilitating liquor inside the jail. Some others were seen threatening some one on phone.
Jail superintendent Pramod Kumar Shukla, who is among the suspended, admitted before the media that four criminals figured in the video and four FIRs were registered against them in Sadar Kotwali of Rae Bareli and a probe was ordered.
Jail inmate Nikhil Sonkar was shifted to Sultanpur, Ajit to Barabanki, Dalsingar Singh to Fatehpur and Anshu to Pratapgarh jails.
Jails in Uttar Pradesh are already plagued by problems like over-crowding, staff crunch and porous security and reports of liquor, weapons and mobile phones finding their way inside the jail.
A committee set up to probe the state of affairs in UP prisons had noted that in many jails, CCTV cameras, metal detectors and manual scanners were not functioning properly.
The recent incident came at a time when the jail administration was in the process of upgrading prisons with multi-level security system and installation of machines to check entry of illegal weapons to end bloody battles in jails. Earlier at Baghpat jail where jailed don Munna Bajrangi was shot seven times by an inmate, it surfaced during probe that CCTV cameras installed inside the jail were not functioning. During subsequent search by the investigators, a pistol, two magazines and 22 cartridges were recovered from a drain inside the jail.
After the Bajrangi murder, notorious ganglords Atiq Ahmed, Mukim alias ‘Kala’, Udaibhan Singh alias ‘Doctor’, Titu alias Kiranpal, Rocky alias ‘Kaki’, Alam Singh and others lodged in jails perceived threat to their lives and urged to be placed in jails located in their ‘areas of influence’. A senior police officer said although the dons were lodged in jails, their gangs continued to indulge in murder, kidnapping, dacoity and extortion as a muscleman’s call from jail was enough to terrorise businessmen, contractors and even government officers. “Those who refuse to follow their diktats are threatened, attacked or even killed,” the official said.
After the BJP came to power in UP in March, 2017, over 100 criminals were shifted from one jail to another to render their crime network ineffective.