HYDERABAD: Convicted of murder, K Maharaj (name changed) is serving his jail term at the Chanchalguda central prison in Hyderabad. While his advocates are fighting it out in the court, ‘freedom’ for him is merely 10 metres away.
As he is employed by the prisons department in one of its outlets outside the prison premises, all he would need is a concrete plan, a pair of strong legs and a quick burst of sprint to escape. While the escape route is clear, such plans in the minds of the 450-odd convicts and undertrials employed at the department’s outlets may not succeed for the jail authorities have ‘employed’ informants from among the prisoners in the absence of CCTV cameras.
The prisons department employs convicts and ex-prisoners at fuel stations, food courts, Ayurvedic centres and furniture shops as part of its employment module. At the recently-inaugurated My Nation Food Court, eight convicts work, but the place has no CCTV cameras to monitor their movements. Officials do not carry any weapons to control the prisoners at work, but instead, monitor the psychological behaviour of the convicts to know their plans to ‘flee’. Officials are confident about the information they gather from their informants who would be among the prisoners.
The chosen ones are made in-charge of other prisoners and are tasked with scenting any plans hatched by those prisoners who want to flee.“Plans like escaping from the jail premises are discussed beforehand by prisoners with their close aides and that information comes to us through informants. The key is to have multiple informants who would pass on such information,” said an official.
The department, meanwhile, has engaged psychologists and social counsellors to constantly monitor the convicts. “At present, there is a psychologist and a social counsellor in every district to observe behavioural changes,” said VK Singh, director-general of prisons. If a prisoner is depressed and is overtaken by monotony, the feeling of dejection makes him flee. Otherwise, most of them do not resort to such steps, he added.
It may be noted that only those who have good behavioural record while in the prison are given an opportunity to work in the open-air jail. Both undertrials and lifetime convicts are considered for the job, which is usually considered as a reward by the convicts for their good behaviour.
Good conduct gets them job
In January this year, M Shiva Kumar,an open-air jail inmate working at a fuel station in Nalgonda, fled with D25,000 from the premises. Though he was caught later, the worry about convicts escaping persists. Those who have fled and are caught later or those who have failed in their attempts to escape are never considered for these jobs at open-air outlets.