HYDERABAD: Absconders from the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) at Erragadda here are nothing new. However, Monday's stunning escape by 11 inmates was a first.

For the last few years, at least 30 inmates every year have been giving IMH authorities the slip. Few of these have returned.

In fact, getting out from the institute is no big deal for many inmates. They did not have to try much because public living around the institute have made it easy for them by breaking the compound wall at several spots.

According to statistics at the Sanjeevareddy Nagar police station, under whose limits the institute is located, at least 30 inmates go "absconding" from IMH every year. "At least two to three cases of absconding patients are registered here every month," a police officer says. Though IMH officials say some of these fugitives later reached their homes and some brought back for re-admission by relatives, there is no news on the rest.

`None is dangerous'

"None of them is dangerous. While some are frustrated with delays in their release procedure, some go just to have food from outside. Some go straight home and are brought back by relatives for treatment again," says IMH Superintendent M. Gowri Devi. Trespassing on the institute campus to take short cuts to the nearby bus stand, rythu bazaar and other places has become too regular, she says. Encroachments by vendors along the compound wall too make affairs easier for trespassers.

Though IMH officials requested municipal and police authorities repeatedly to evict encroachers so that the wall could be repaired, nothing has happened. However, after the recent escape, they approached the district Collector for a stonewall around the institute to which the latter has agreed.

"There is also a proposal for a shopping complex alongside the compound wall so that it will stop trespassers and earn some revenue for us as well," Ms. Gowri Devi informs. A Central fund of Rs. 3 crores has also arrived 10 days ago, boosting IMH's efforts to improve infrastructure. "We will build a 150-bed facility for court and criminal case wards, modernise the kitchen and laundry," she says.

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