Bengaluru: Drugs, alcohol and money seem to be the way of life at Parappana Agrahara central prison. The jail staffers, who are expected to reform the inmates, in many instances, become suppliers of drugs, alcohol and other contraband including mobile phones and SIM cards to the inmates. With the jail staff joining hands with inmates, the prison is nothing but a paradise for prisoners.
The ongoing spat between DIG (Prisons) D. Roopa Moudgil and the DGP and IGP of Prisons H.N. Sathyanarayana Rao and other officers has revealed that all is not well behind the high walls of the central prisons, and the videos and photos surfacing everyday are only proving this point.
Screenshot of the video showing inmates playing cards.
Sources said that corruption is rampant within the prison. “It starts from visitors who come to meet their family members, relatives or friends lodged in the prison, to inmates seeking quarantine rooms that offer privacy. There are 200 quarantine rooms, which are meant for inmates who are booked under some special acts, those who face threat from other prisoners or those who pose a threat to other inmates. But some inmates who have the financial support bribe the staff to get these rooms. They pay anywhere between Rs 30,000 and Rs 40,000 to get the room first. Then they keep paying weekly or monthly ‘rents’ to jailers and warders,” a source said. Also, convicts have to cough up money to get their choice of work.
The prison guards posted at the entry gates and interview rooms allegedly make money by extorting the visitors. “There are three types of interviews, general, special and lawyer. At all these interviews, the staff extort money based on the background of the vistors,” the source said.
The convicts who are drug addicts try desperately to get supplies from their associates. “There are a few staffers who take advantage of inmates’ weakness for drugs and offer to supply drugs for hefty amounts. While getting drugs from associates is risky as there are chances of getting caught, getting it from the staff is easier. So, they prefer to get it from the staff by paying huge amounts. There are also instances where the prison authorities support the drug racket run by few individual inmates. As long as the payoffs keep going to staffers, everything is fine. Once it is stopped, raids are conducted. Soon enough, everything is back to normal,” the source said, adding that staff also supply alcohol for double the price.
Shockingly, there are also instances of a few senior officials allegedly sexually exploiting female prisoners. “There are cases where a few senior officers have befriended woman convicts and have gone out with them after granting them parole,” another source said.
But there more ways of making money for the jail staff. Some officers allegedly join hands with contractors and get a cut in supplies for the prison, a prison department source said.
