The Hindu : New Delhi News : A great escape but not the first

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jul 07, 2005

New Delhi

New Delhi

A great escape but not the first

taff Reporter

Dramatic escape of prisoners from the Tihar jail

NEW DELHI: The dramatic escape of 13 inmates from the high-security Tihar Central Jail on Wednesday may be one of the biggest ever jail breaks in the Capital, but there have been such incidents in the past as well.

The most recent was the escape of Sher Singh Rana, the main accused in the Phoolan Devi murder case, who simply walked out of the prison in February 2004 and is still at large.

A high-security risk prisoner of Jail No. 1, Rana was supposed to be taken to a Hardwar court for hearing in a case under the Gangster Act.

His accomplice, wearing a Delhi police uniform, approached the jail officials claiming that he had come to take Rana to Hardwar.

The "constable" introduced himself as Arvind Kumar, posted with the IIIrd Battalion of the Delhi Armed Police (DAP), and also produced some documents showing that he had been authorised to take Rana's custody.

The jail authorities allegedly did not check the documents' authenticity and handed over Rana to the "constable''. Interestingly, he was also given a transit expense of Rs. 40.

It was almost an hour later that a DAP constable, Ashok Kumar, reached the jail to take Rana's custody that the jail authorities realised they had been hoodwinked. The other great escape was that of the `bikini killer' Charles Sobhraj who drugged the prison staff and vanished from the scene in March 1986.

The biggest ever escape was that of over 80 students of a prestigious university who simply walked out of the prison using a fake jail visitor's stamp in 1983.

However, the most stunning case was that of 13 life prisoners who dug a tunnel and escaped from Tihar Jail way back in 1976.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

New Delhi