LUCKNOW: As the Covid-19 cases are on the surge in Uttar Pradesh, 43 prisoners of two jails in Muzzaffarnagar district have tested positive for coronavirus on Tuesday. The officials claimed that all the inflicted prisoners were moved to isolation wards within the jail premises.
The 43 prisoners, including 22 of the district jail and 21 in a temporary jail, pushed the tally of infected prisoners across Muzaffarnagar to 400, they added.
With the onset of the pandemic, UP prison authorities had set up isolation wards in all district and temporary jails.
Muzaffarnagar ADM Amit Singh confirmed the cases of infection among prisoners. He said the infected prisoners had been moved to the isolation wards on the jail premises.
Meanwhile, Muzzaffarnagar on Monday registered 107 new Covid-19 cases, which pushed the active number of cases to 912. As many as 1,800 people have recovered from the disease so far.
An undertrial prisoner had died in Banda district jail due to Covid-19 on Monday. Gulbandan, 57, was found Covid-19 positive for the disease on September 1 and he died during treatment on Sunday, Jail Superintendent RK Singh said. Gulbandan was jailed in a case of culpable homicide and that his body was cremated as per protocols after post-mortem.
The Banda District Jail, at present, has 956 prisoners against its capacity of 656.
According to Banda health authorities, 95 prisoners and jail officials in the district jail are currently infected with the virus.
Complying with the Supreme Court orders, the UP government has released over 18,000 prisoners on parole which makes around 15-17% of the total prisoners in the state to check the infections in jails. Even after permissions from the Juvenile Justice Board, 700 children were released on parole from child protection homes.
Due to the spread of coronavirus, the Supreme Court had directed states to release prisoners, facing up to seven years of jail terms, on parole.