A team of East Singhbhum district administration carried out inspection of the Ghaghidih Central Jail here on Friday. led by Deputy Commissioner, Amitabh Kaushal, the administrative team found all the three jammers lying defunct, luggage scanner non-functional, most of the CCTV cameras defunct and a dearth of security guards. The inspection that started in the morning continued till 2 pm.
Additional district magistrate, Anil Kumar Ray, who was also part of the inspection team, said security system was not foolproof as the luggage scanner was not functioning at jail. The team carried the search operation based on some reports we received. He pointed that raid was necessary in view of the security of the jail.
During the inspection, jailer, Satyandra Chowdhury said both the scanners and luggage scanner were lying defunct since past one year. The jailer was reprimanded by the Deputy Commissioner for negligence. The filing system and the system of maintaining the correspondence with other government department and the police were not in accordance.
Earlier, Kaushal while talking to the newsmen admitted the central jail’s security system was not as good as it should have been. “We have ordered the jail administration to get the jammers as well as the luggage scanner and get new CCTV cameras installed at the earliest. We also understand that there is an acute shortage of security guards. We are also taking the necessary steps to ensure that the central jail may get adequate number of guards,” said Kaushal.
Meanwhile, the jailer of the Ghaghidih Central Jail said that they had written to the state home department get the jammers and the luggage scanners had stopped functioning since a year ago. But there was no positive sign for the repairing of these equipment. The Ghaghidih Central jail is spread over 13 acres of land and has a capacity to accommodate 1,447 inmates. In the sprawling jail there are only 76 guards in place of a sanctioned strength of 212 guards.
Though the central jail has six watch-towers and equipped with jammers for blocking the telecommunication signal from outside world but the jammer are lying defunct. The jail has a less number of security guards than what has been sanctioned. As a result of which the influential inmates lodged in the central jail manage to bring cell-phones for keeping link with the outside world,” noted another official. The fact that the inmates have access to cell-phone for keeping link with the outside world has been proved after the district administration recovered cell-phones and things like battery-chargers and SIM card of cell phones a number time during surprise raids in the past.