PATNA: In a raid conducted by the police and prison officials in all Bihar jails on Sunday, 23 cellphones along with chargers and other banned items including tobacco were found.
The raids were conducted after a dispute between two inmates, who were lodged in the Hajipur jail in connection with India's major gold heist, committed in Rajasthan's Jaipur. The dispute over sharing the looted gold allegedly led to the murder of one of the inmates. The victim was identified as Manish Kumar alias Telia of Vaishali district.
Prison IG Mithilesh Mishra, who monitored all the raids said, "As many as 23 cellphones along with 16 mobile chargers and 11 SIM cards besides tobacco products were recovered from jails of Bihar including Hajipur jail".
He said that the raids were planned randomly to assess the security arrangements and to know whether the rules of Jail manual were being followed strictly or not. Mishra said that departmental actions would be intimated against concerned jail staffs on their failure that benefited the entry of the recovered items into jails.
"The FIRs have been lodged in concerned all police stations upon the recoveries of items from jails wards of UTs", he said. On Saturday,the IG Prison had suspended five Hajipur jail staffs including an assistant jail warden in connection with the murder of an imprisoned gold robber.