Hyderabad: Prisons in the state, which lead in terms of education, reforms, greenery and industries, are as vulnerable from the security standpoint as the Bhopal Central Prison from where eight Simi activists escaped on Monday, killing a head warder. They were subsequently shot dead.
TS prisons including the three Central jails at Cherlapally, Chanchalguda and Warangal can hold 6,848 prisoners. Right now, they are home to 6,102, including 2,360 convicts, nearly 3,000 undertrials; and the rest being detenues and women prisoners.
Of the total, about 600 are recognised as “trouble-makers”, including 50 with suspected links to the ISI, Simi and the Indian Mujahideen.
The Central and district prisons and sub-jails are short of staff. The dearth of head warders and other staff is leading to poor maintenance of correctional services, implementation of prison rules and monitoring the inmates.
Three decades ago, the central prison, now in Cherlapally, was located at Musheerabad on a five-acre site. At that time, it was sanctioned 150 staff to oversee 500 prisoners.
It was shifted to the 145-acre Cherlapally site and the intake increased to 2,000 but the number of staff sanctioned has remained the same. This is leading to major problems like prisoners using cellphones and availability of narcotics like ganja with the prisoners.
The jail has 140 staff of whom 90 to 100 are available for the four daily shifts. Each shift has only 15 to 20 staff from warder to DSP rank officials. Similar problems are being faced at Chanchalguda and Warangal Central prisons where 1,400 and 1,000 inmates were lodged.
Prisons’ DG V.K. Singh told this newspaper that the sanctioned posts in all the prisons was 1,700 but there were only 1,400 staff.
“The situation in the women prison is poor. It has only a head warder, a warder, a jailer and a superintendent. “They are working in shifts. We have written to the government seeking additional staff and home guards till the recruitments are taken up,” he said.
State announces more money but does not pay
The state Budget had allocated Rs 30 crore to the prisons’ department to procure electronic equipment to beef up surveillance but the money has not been sanctioned.
Following this, prisons’ DG V.K. Singh announced in April that the department would procure gadgets to implement staff-less surveillance technology apart from purchasing X-ray scanners, metal detectors, emergency lighting system, high-power searchlights, cellular emergency lamps.
According to the National Crime Records Bureau, TS prisons have 18 CCTV cameras, 24 metal detectors, 183 walkie talkie sets and 43 VHF sets, which are not sufficient. The CCTV cameras were installed at the three central prisons and women prison.
Mr Singh said that the staff was conducting manual searches at barracks and while inmates were returning from courts. “It is not possible to check each and every barrack or inmate without equipment. Staff from every jail is facing problems due to the lack of equipment and manpower,” he said.
A retired jailer said that except for lack of manpower and equipment, inmates could not break out of any jail in TS. “Following the previous experiences, we have enhanced the height of jail walls. But, we thoroughly observe movements of staff lest then took advantage of the situation.”
The NCRB said that five prisoners had escaped from TS prisons in 2015 but officials said that was not the case: Two had escaped during court trial and three from police custody. One escape, in 2016, was that of Salauddin, who had killed the tigress Sakhi. He was caught three days later. Besides, staff had been attacked in 2011 by ISI suspects.
