In order to prevent any lapses inside prisons and ensure that undertrials or convicts do not have access to additional facilities, the government will upgrade the security system on the lines of Tihar jail in New Delhi.
“The security of 25 district jails will be upgraded in a phased manner,” confirmed Director General of Prison Administration and Reform Services, Anand Kumar, in Lucknow on Friday.
“Work is underway on a three-phase plan. The security of outer circle of jails will be handed to civil police other than the jail staff. For this, a proposal has been sent to the state government for providing 1,300 additional police force for the task,” Kumar said.
The DG (Prison) added that the administration would ensure that there were no mobile phones, weapons or any other objectionable things inside the jail.
He said the use of mobile phones by jail staff would also be banned inside the jail premises during duty hours, for which a circular was earlier issued.
“Mobile phones of the staff will be deposited at lockers before they enter jail premises. Besides, civil police personnel will be deployed for frisking visitors, inmates and staff,” he said.
“Our focus will be on rotation of civil police personnel deployed in the outer cordon to break the equation, if any, between inmates and jail staff. No one will be deployed at the same place for more than 45 days. Also, the civil police deployment for jail’s outer cordon will be done by the local district police chief and not by jail authorities. A quick response team of police will also be deployed for helping jail staff in riot-like situation,” Kumar said.
Last month, some videos of inmates at Unnao jail had gone viral causing much embarrassment to the jail administration. The videos showed inmates flashing weapons and mobile phones and challenging the administration. Three prisoners also escaped from Etawah district jail and one of them was run over by a train while two are still absconding.
Meanwhile, the government confirmed that jails in the state were overcrowded and were housing inmates way above their capacity.
Replying to a question of Bahujan Samaj Party member Sukhdev Rajbhar in the Assembly on Friday, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said that five Central jails in UP were housing 10,735 inmates against the total capacity of 8,049.
Yogi said that 62 district jails could accommodate 50,650 inmates, but were holding 84,944 prisoners.