The high-security Tihar Central Jail in Delhi has also had its fair share of trouble with such blade-runners. The story here also has a twist to it as two gangs have been engaged in a turf war through the use of this methodology of terror.

Incidentally both gangs have about 15 members each. Jail sources insist that their modus operandi involves attacking any person who speaks to a member of the other gang. “While they are called blade-runners, they use just about any sharp object to attack other inmates and to terrorise them into submission,” said a jail official.

Following a spate of such attacks, the Tihar Jail authorities decided to place these two gangs in separate jails. While one of the gangs was put up in Jail No. 5, the other was placed in Jail No. 8. The leaders of these gangs are both convicts who have been fighting each other for many years both within and outside the jail.

The members of these gangs have various cases against them. They also seem to care little for grant of remission – which varies from three months to four and a half months per year — by the jail authorities that is given to inmates who conduct themselves in a decent manner.

While the segregation of these inmates has helped the authorities in checking cases of blade attacks in the prison complex, the problem persists in jail vans and in the courts. About 1,500 inmates are taken to court every day and as there are not enough vans to carry the blade-runners separately, they often threaten and attack other inmates therein.

Often the jail authorities also seek permission from the courts to bring these inmates in fetters, but to their astonishment they have realised that this only enhanced the “prestige” and “influence” of these criminals: “If they are given any kind of special treatment or punishment, they walk with their head held high in the courts and unfortunately end up vitiating the atmosphere there.”

Also as they attack other inmates in jail vans and in court lock-ups in the presence of police personnel, this increases their nuisance value. Ordinary inmates start thinking that if they are not secure in the presence of police personnel, who they rely and depend on deeply, then it is better that they pay up the extortion amounts.

In such a scenario, plans now need to be drawn up to rid the jail vans and court lock-ups – by having separate enclosures — of this nuisance as well, just the way in Tihar Jail the problem has somewhat been curbed ever since the known blade-runners were lodged in separate cells so that they were unable to interact with other inmates.

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