Amritsar: High-security prisons to have nets, AI-based CCTV cameras

Tribune News Service

PK Jaiswar

Amritsar, April 29

To check the influx of mobile phones and other forbidden material into jails, the Jail Department is going to install polypropylene nets besides artificial intelligence-based CCTV cameras to strengthen the security measures in high security jails, including Amritsar Central Jail complex.

Rs 500cr sanctioned for reforms

• Steps taken to check influx of prohibited items into jails
• Since Jan, around 400 mobile phones seized from prisoners
• The govt has sanctioned around Rs 500 crore for jail reforms

Being located in the densely populated areas, the checking of throwing of mobile phones, dongles, chargers, cigarettes and ‘bidis’ among other prohibited material has been a challenge for the jail authorities.

Since January, the jail authorities have confiscated around 400 mobile phones from the prisoners. Amritsar Central Jail houses notorious drug peddlers and gangsters who have been running their criminal nexus from inside the jail premises through cell phones, besides foreign nationals.

Additional Director General of Police (ADGP), Jails, Arun Pal Singh confirmed the development and said the process for installing nets and AI-based CCTV cameras had started in order to end the practice of prohibited material being flung inside the jails from outside.

“We have been reporting around 12 to 13 such incidents per day, due to which the state government had sanctioned around Rs 500 crore for jail reforms,” said the ADGP.

The jail administration had introduced the prison inmate calling system, facilitating the prisoners to make calls on 10 prepaid numbers at very nominal charges. Nevertheless, the prisoners want to have their own mobile phones.

The jail department also constituted a research and analysis wing in jails to research on the trends of the seizures from jails, he added. The inmates were smuggling prohibited materials, including mobile phones, by hiding these in their body cavities, in construction material and food items.

“The DGP has given instructions for probing into the seizures of cell phones. FIRs have also been made mandatory in such cases,” said ADGP Arun Pal Singh. He added that there was zero tolerance approach and whosoever, including cops, jail staff or paramilitary jawan, was found involved, stern action would be taken against him. He said the problem of lack of manpower was also being addressed in a phased manner, besides expanding the capacity of jails.

A jail official preferring anonymity said around 8 km of boundary wall around the Amritsar Central Jail was prone to this problem. At some places residential houses were located along the boundary walls, he said.

Amritsar Police Commissioner Gurpreet Singh Bhullar has also constituted a special investigating team for detailed investigations into the seizure of mobile phones and other material from jail.

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