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Central prison courting controversy

PUDUCHERRY: The Central Prison at Jawaharlal Nehru Street, more than a century old, has been in the news recently for all the wrong reasons.

Controversies continue to haunt the prison, be it suicides or reports of convicts operating from the jail. The latest incident was the death of Kamal Shah, a life convict involved in the sensational Parvathi Shah murder case, on April 21.

He was found dead with his throat slit, inside the cell of another convict. The finding of the magisterial inquiry into the mysterious death of Kamal Shah is awaited.

Earlier in 2005, convicts Ali, Jegan and Periaiah died inside the cell after consuming “liquor mixed with cyanide type of poison.” A probe, conducted by a retired judge, revealed that a bottle containing the substance was thrown into the premises over the compound wall from behind the jail.

“The target was some other convicts. But the trio accidentally picked up the bottle thinking that the liquid was liquor,” said an officer involved in the inquiry. Following this, Jail Superintendent N. Jayakandan was suspended, only to be reinstated a few days later.

In yet another incident last year, Ramamoorthy, in prison for not obeying a court order to pay compensation to his wife, allegedly committed suicide by jumping from the second floor. It was reliably learnt that the inquiry into the incident is yet to be completed.

The same year, another life convict attempted suicide by consuming a chemical used for cleaning toilets. Jail authorities were quick to deny the charge that he took the extreme step because of torture inside the prison.

But the most shocking of all incidents came to light following a police inquiry into the blast that occurred near the Railway Station on December 1, 2007, which killed two children and injured another kid. Investigations revealed that a life convict, Manikandan, a noted anti-social element, was instrumental in making the bomb.

Police officers involved in the investigation of the blast near the Railway Station and another one at the residence of a political functionary on the same day, said Manikandan had made several calls from the prison through his cell phone to Veeramurugam, a key accused in the case.

Following this, jail authorities seized two cell phones from inside the prison.

Deputy Inspector General of Police S. Vasudeva Rao, in-charge of the prison, said the situation had improved after personnel from the India Reserve Battalion were brought in.

The delay in shifting the prison to a new complex, for which work commenced in 2001 at Kalapet, had come in the way of initiating prison reforms and tightening security.

The jail, with a capacity of 150, now houses 263 inmates, according to one of the jail authorities.The new complex, constructed at a cost of around Rs.12 crore, could accommodate 500 prisoners, Mr. Rao said.

The sprawling prison campus, coming up on an area of 14.5 hectares, would have facilities for video-conferencing to conduct trial in sensitive cases and a well-guarded enclosure for visitors. Except electrification, all the other works were complete, Mr. Rao said, adding that they planned to shift the complex by the end of next month.

Representatives of political parties and social organisations, in the forefront of agitations against the functioning of jail authorities, said what really needed to be done was “thorough cleansing of the system with appointment of professionally trained staff.”

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