Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) will guard the three central jails of Punjab.
The decision came into light the day a bloody clash broke out in Ludhiana central jail leaving one prisoner dead and several injured, which also included half a dozen policemen.
The Union Ministry of Home Affairs had sanctioned three companies of CRPF for three central jails in Punjab — Amritsar, Bathinda and Ludhiana — with immediate effect.
For the same, the Punjab Government would have to pay the requisite cost of the deployment of these CRPF companies in its jails. In general, one CRPF company has around 100 personnel.
The Centre has communicated the decision through a letter on Wednesday, but the same came to light by Thursday afternoon after the outbreak of violence in Ludhiana central jail.
“For the time being, this will be fresh deployment and over the time as and when central industrial security force (CISF) takes over the VIP protection duties, the CRPF companies will be freed upon from VIP duties and revert to CRPF,” reads the communication dated June 26 addressed to the Punjab Chief Secretary Karan Avtar Singh and the Director General of Police (DGP) Dinkar Gupta.
The Union Home Ministry has also directed the CRPF Additional Director General of Operations to deploy three companies in Punjab’s three jails “in consultation with the DGP, Punjab immediately.”
After the Punjab jails department had raised the demand for four CRPF companies, a joint-team of the CRPF and the state Jails Department had carried out a survey of various jails in the state in February.
The decision was taken on the request of the State Government, which has all along been pressing for deploying the central forces to guard the state jails where the dreaded criminals and gangsters inhabit.
The State Government has made the request aiming at breaking the nexus between the jail officials and the prisoners, besides strengthening the security in the jails.
Notably, the state’s Additional Chief Secretary (Home) NS Kalsi had written a letter to the Union Home Secretary on October 8, 2018, raising the demand for the CRPF companies for high security jails in the State.