Security arrangements in Punjab jails have gone to the dogs, literally. For, the State Government has decided to deploy sniffer dogs to effectively assist in carrying out searches of barracks, ward staff and jail inmates to check drug inflow in jails.
The development is significant as the sniffer dogs finally to be deployed came more than three years after the Jails Reforms Committee, headed by retired Punjab and Haryana High Court judge Justice Amar Dutt, had suggested the same.
Justice Dutt has given nothing less than 21 recommendations in its report for beefing up security arrangements and checking drug menace in jails including deployment of sniffer dogs, disallowing eatables for inmates, exhaustive search of Jail staff by independent agency, using electronic gadgets, installation of hand-held metal and drug detectors, installation of full size x-ray machines, periodic-random urine and blood tests of inmates to detect consumption of drugs, and ban on carrying currency inside the jail, among others.
The State Government has deployed eight sniffer dogs at prisons. “Under the pilot project, eight such sniffer dogs, mostly labradors, have been inducted into the police force and dispatched to Punjab Police Academy, Phillaur, for special training,” said the state Jail Minister Sohan Singh Thandal.
The dogs will undergo special training of 32 weeks commencing from Tuesday, he said, adding that after training, these sniffer dogs would be deployed at ludhiana, Amritsar, Bathinda, Patiala, Nabha, Gurdaspur, Ferozepur and Jalandhar Central jails.
Thandal said that the use of sniffer dogs has been prevalent world-over at sensitive places to detect explosive material and drugs. “Similarly, the State Government has decided to deploy sniffer dogs at jails,” he said. “After the success of this pilot project, sniffer dogs will be deployed at all the jails in Punjab,” he said.
Thandal said that for the upkeep of these dogs, 16 police personnel and four caretakers have also been deployed at Punjab Police Academy, Phillaur.
“These sniffer dogs would mainly be deployed at Central Jails and their services will also be taken for surprise search operation for drugs and mobiles phones,” he said.
Earlier this month, Punjab Government had dismissed a head warder, posted at Jalandhar Central jail, for allegedly supplying drugs to inmates. Even outside the jails, the drug problem in Punjab has assumed alarming proportions. Badal has said that rehabilitation centres for drug de-addiction in 22 districts of the State will be made operational within three months.