Prisoners warned over mobile phones

Chennai: The jail officials, exasperated by the fact that jail in­m­ates continue to use mo­bile phones inside prisons de­spite installing telephone booths for them, have decided make the punishments stringent for breaking the rule.

“If any one of them in a cell is found using a m­obile phone, all the inm­ates of the cell will now face the music,” said a senior prison official.

Despite the state opening 54 telephone booths in the nine central prisons in the state and four other jails, some of the prisoners continue to possess mobile ph­ones inside the prisons.

Last week, the jail officials at Puzhal complex seized a mobile phone from a man arrested in connection with peddling narcotic substa­nces.

Officials suspect that the suspect, Chell­ad­urai Raja, could still be running the drug cartel from the prison.

Now that the prisoners have the facility to talk to their kith and kin, those found with mobile phones cannot give the excuse that they were talking only to their families.

A senior jail official said they have set up a punishment mechanism of changing the entire inmates from one block to another, even if one of the inmates was found using a mobile phone.

Until the phone booths were opened, some of the inmates were making mo­ney for providing the phone assistance illegally to other inmates.

Now, a majority of prisoners prefer not to use mobile phones after the phone booth facility came up inside jails.

The prison officials hope to get rid of all the mobile phones within a month. At Pu­zhal, there are total of eight booths and over 50 prisoners use the phone daily.

As phone usage is permitted to a maximum of 30 minutes per month and thrice a month with a maximum of 10 minutes every time to three registered numbers, including family and advocate, incidence of mobile phone usage has come do­wn, a prison senior offici­al said.