Hyderabad, February 03: The Andhra Pradesh Prisons department may have failed in arresting the menace of mobile phone smuggling inside ‘high security’ jails. But each time there is a hue and cry about mobile phone being used by convicts, they are quick to point a finger at the state government, for not giving green signal for installing mobile jammers inside jails. Meanwhile, chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy has ordered director-general (Prisons) to conduct an inquiry into the incident.
Though the proposal to install jammers is a few years old, the department continues to blame the government for not implementing it. While they continue to indulge in blame game, prisoners are able to smuggle in phones and talk to anyone as they wish.
Prison officials have been attributing the delay to technical reasons as none of the gadget providers have been able to provide fool-proof solution. But few jails in the country including the Tihar jail have jammers installed successfully. “Installation of jammers is one solution before us. But the problem is that jammers belonging to different companies are not able to negate services of all service providers,’’ a senior prison official said. “This is a blessing in disguise, especially for hardcore prisoners kept in the Papagni barrack, where prison staff were brutally attacked. On several occasions mobile phones were recovered from them in the last several months,’’ said a Prisons department official. Though officials planned to put an end to the mobile phone menace in jails by introducing sophisticated technology, nothing has been done so far. Besides putting up jammers to block signals, officials do not have a concrete solution. “Using mobile phones inside jails is not new and has been continuing for several years. By installing jammers, at least the menace could be curbed,’’ an official said, when asked to comment how he would justify having jammers when they were unable to prevent smuggling of mobile phones.
Added to this problem there is severe manpower shortage in Cherlapally jail. There are only 130 security men to guard nearly 1,800 inmates. “Ideally there has to be at least 200 members to guard the premises, as its the only jail in the state to house notorious ISI and fundamentalist prisoners,’’ a senior prison official said.
Surprisingly, in the Papagni barrack, only one security person guards 22 most notorious prisoners including Syed Viqaruddin, Ali Bhai, Zia-ul-Haq, Shaik Abdul Khaja and Nafeeq-Ul. As a consequence, they could allegedly hide cricket bats, stumps, vegetable knives and other weapons in their cells.
–Agencies