CHANDIGARH: A recent report has revealed that gangsters lodged in Punjab prisons are having a field day behind bars. Of the 225 gangsters in Punjab’s jails, 35 are hardened criminals, who are threatening officials, resorting to violence and attacking prison staff. There have been many instances of gang wars and jailbreaks as well. All this was admitted by the Punjab Jails Department in its recent report.
It states that jailed gangsters require special attention as four of the six escapees from Nabha Jail were gangsters. The report said that the gangsters enjoy undue facilities in jail, for which they use money and fear among prison staff.
On December 6, 2016, a prisoner Mahendra Singh threatened the mother of DIG (Prisons) Lakhminder Singh Jakhar from two mobile numbers from jail. Deputy Superintendent of Police (Jails) Vikramjit Singh was shot on December 27, 2015, in Jalandhar. A bullet hit his leg. In 2012, the then Punjab DGP (Prisons) Shashi Kant had said that the drug mafia in state jails was threatening him.
Scared of the threats, jail staff have stopped wearing their name badges to avoid identification.
The report further states that a gang war broke out on December 5 last year in Central Jail Hoshiarpur. Naveen Kumar, Pardeep and Rohit attacked other undertrials in Barrack 15. On September 20 last year, a fight broke out between Gurpreet Singh, Jagbir Singh and Ravinder Kumar in Modern Jail Faridkot. The same month, a clash betwen gangs of Lawrence Bishnoi and Vicky Gaunder in Ropar Jail left five injured. Within days at Amritsar Central, gangster Abhijeet clashed with Jagdeep Singh.
On March 29, 2016, the mastermind of the Nabha Jail break Parwinder Singh alias Pinda escaped while being taken to hospital. He was arrested later.
On January 17, 2015, eight people freed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi while he was returning to Ropar Jail from a court hearing in Abohar. He was arrested later. Four days later, gangster Davinder Singh fled from police custody while going to court in Muktsar from Central Jail Ludhiana. He was subsequently killed in an encounter.
Gangsters use cellphones in jails and update their social media accounts. A nine-point jail security plan has been prepared in this regard, which includes hhigh-securityzones in prisons where such prisoners will
be housed.
“The high-security zones will have 4G jammers, door frame metal detectors, round-the-clock CCTV surveillance and different mulakat timings for hardcore criminals,” said Additional Director General of Police (Prisons) Punjab, Rohit Choudhary. “We have proposed video conferencing for hardcore criminals and terrorist for court hearings so that they cannot escape while in transit to courts.”