CHENNAI: The brazen escape of 17 inmates from Thekkampatti prison on Monday night is the worst jailbreak recorded in the state after the notorious Vellore prison escape of 1995.
In the early hours of August 15, 1995, 43 LTTE militants, including four women, escaped from the Vellore high-security special camp. However, nine of them, who had arrived at the Madras Egmore Railway station, were nabbed by the Government Railway Police within hours of the escape. Two of them died by suicide.
The militants had crawled through a 153-foot-long tunnel dug below the 20-foot-high wall surrounding the historic Vellore Fort and reached the moat. They had to swim across the 50-foot-wide moat filled with 10-foot-deep water and reach the road.
Ten LTTE militants arrived at the Egmore Railway station by train and purchased tickets for the Vaigai Express to reach Madurai.
When the railway police surrounded them, one of them consumed a cyanide capsule tied around his neck and shoved another into the mouth of one of his colleagues. However, one militant, knowing the fate of his colleagues, escaped.
The attempt was the eighth major escape bid by the LTTE militants over the few years till 1995, according to an Express report. In February 1995, nine LTTE militants escaped from Chennai Central prison.
Two escapees were captured very soon, and one of them died by suicide when the police surrounded him. At that time, on the orders of the then Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, IG (Prisons) T S Panchapakesan was transferred, and a judicial probe was ordered.
In November 1992, 19 LTTE militants escaped from Tippu Mahal in Vellore prison. In four other attempts, six militants escaped from Salem Central Jail, Melur Jail in Madurai, and Saidapet sub-jail.
On August 20, 1990, Auto Shankar, a notorious gangster and murderer, escaped from Chennai Central prison along with four other prisoners. He was recaptured in Odisha on September 1, 1990.