The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Undertrial seeks DTH facility to watch World Cup matches

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Mar 10, 2007
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Undertrial seeks DTH facility to watch World Cup matches

Special Correspondent

Prison department fears it will encourage indiscipline

CHENNAI: An undertrial lodged in the Puzhal central prison, in connection with the RSS office bomb-blast case, has sought direct to home (DTH) facility in his jail block to watch World Cup cricket matches.

A. Abdul Rahim, who was arrested in connection with the August 1993 blast, filed a representation before the designated court under Terrorist and Disruptive Act (TADA) here, seeking permission to have the facility at his cost.

Though in the petition he had mentioned that DTH was necessary to pass time and keep mental agony at bay, when the matter came up before the Judge T. Ramasamy he said he wished to watch the World Cup matches.

Response sought

The Judge asked the prison administration to file its response and posted the matter for Friday.

According to advocate V. Kannadasan, the Prison department had filed a counter-affidavit stating that any provision for DTH would encourage indiscipline among the inmates, whose outside contacts were restrained by the Prison Manual.

Pointing out that all blocks in the Puzhal Prison had been provided with a television set, it said all Doordarshan programmes were available for the inmates. Doordarshan would also telecast all cricket matches involving India, it said.

The manual provided for censoring all letters to the inmates, it said, adding that it would be difficult to restrict or censor contents of programmes received through the DTH. The court order is expected on March 12.

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