left nervous following the audacious jail break incident involving the high security Nabha jail of Punjab, superintendent of Jail, Suddhowala, Mahendra Singh Gwal has asked the district police on Wednesday to help them rev up security of the jail.
While talking to The Pioneer, Gwal said that one and half platoon of PAC jawans being deployed from time to time by the police administration to ensure security outside the jail campus is not enough. He stressed that the PAC jawans should be permanently deployed outside the jail campus to make the security fool-proof.
Jail sources said that many hardened criminals being lodged in the jail, the jail needs extra security. Some of the seasoned criminals being lodged in the jail are Prakash Pandey alias PP, Cheenu Pandit, Jitendra Rawat alias Jitti, Sunil Rathi’s gang members like Sushil Choudhary, Anubhav Vashishth, Sudhir, Anil and Narendra Valmiki aside from the accused of the high profile Manendhra Bhati murder case.
If sources are to be believed, Gwal said that he himself and jailor Rakesh Sharma are the target of Sunil Rathi’s gang.
“Things are grim for us. The dreaded criminals from the notorious gang led by Rathi and Cheenu Pandit might use the laxity of the jail security to embark on mischief any time. The members of the rival gangs fought a gunfight outside Roorkee sub-jail in August 2014, resulting in the death of three criminals. We cannot rule out repeat of such daring incidents, given the fact that a handful of civil police are manning the main gate of the jail,” said a jail official, unwilling to be named.
Recounting the difficulty they are facing, Gwal is learnt to have drawn the attention of the top cops to the fact that the jail is crammed with criminals, much beyond its capacity. Besides, he mentioned that the number of CCTV cameras and jammers operating in the jail is not adequate to keep tab on the movements of the jail inmates many of whom are notorious criminals.
Quizzed, a senior police officer said that they are aware of things. Security has been beefed up around the jails following the Nabha jail break. “We are leaving nothing to chance with police being on their toes to stop any such incident from happening in any of the jails of the State,” he said.