In view of the jail officials allegedly providing facilities to the inmates that the latter are not entitled to in several jails of the state, questions are being raised whether things are happening because of the threat the hardened criminals lodged there are giving to the staffers or whether the officials are going out of their ways to please the inmates under pressure from their superiors.
What happened recently at the high-security Tihar Jail in the national capital of Delhi has revived the matter in Uttarakhand too as similar things are supposed to be happening in the jails of the state.
The deputy jailor Karmraj Singh Chauhan of the jail in Chamoli was dismissed from service by the order of the state IG Jail PVK Prasad on Sunday after it was found out in November last year that a notorious jailbird had asked a Roorkee- based businessman to cough up Rs 30 lakh or else face dire consequences while calling up from the mobile of the accused jail officer.
The criminal was said to have identified himself as a close aide of the dreaded gangster Sunil Rathi. An investigation followed following which the complicity of Chauhan was established, resulting in the action taken against him. Earlier, during the time the then superintendent of police Haridwar rural embarked on a surprise inspection to the Roorkee sub-jail, mobiles, coolers and other luxurious items were found in the prison with eyebrows raised over a possible collusion between the inmates and the staffers manning the jail.
More alarmingly, it was found through the probe of the call details of the mobiles seized that Rathi had chalked out the strategy to have his arch rival Chinu Pandit murdered inside the jail campus.
The attempt to eliminate Pandit was made the way the plan was chalked out in the sub- jail on August 9 2014, resulting in three deaths. However, Pandit narrowly escaped the deadly attack.
Alarmed over the criminals taking security with chaff, the administration of jails was handed over to an IPS officer by the state government, rupturing the longstanding tradition of leaving things to an IAS.
Senior IPS officer PVK Prasad was made IG jail to stem the tide of security being trifled with. However, following shortage of manpower and equipments, the situation seems to remain the same.
Observers privy to the way the jails are being run are of the opinion that the prison staffers are under pressure with the notorious criminals being lodged there threatening them of consequences in case their demands for extra facilities are not satisfied. “Besides, there are reasons to believe that the pressure is also put up on them from their superiors who are inclined to humour the jailbirds who are ready to grease their palms adequately. The latest case from the Chamoli-based jail is a pointer to this fact. Mere dismissal of an officer would not do and a thorough inquiry must be held to expose and eliminate the collusion- racket supposedly running in the jails throwing the laws to the winds,” an observer said.