Smugglers made 43K calls from Ferozepur jail, 7 officials face inquiry
Jupinderjit Singh
Chandigarh, December 22
The Punjab Prisons Department has ordered an inquiry against seven jail officials, including the serving superintendent, for serious lapses in administration which led to three smugglers making over 43,000 calls while being lodged at the Ferozepur jail even as two of them got Rs 1.35 crore transferred online to accounts of their wives. It is being probed if the accused transferred or received money through phones inside the jail.
1,295 calls daily
- Two serving, three retired jail supdts among seven in dock
- On an average, 1,295 calls were made daily from the jail
- A key accused released on bail
Among the officials facing inquiry are two serving and three retired jail superintendents. They are incumbent Satnam Singh, superintendent, Central Jail, Ferozepur; Arvinder Pal Singh Bhatti, former superintendent (under suspension now); Parvinder Singh, principal, Punjab Jail Training School, Patiala; and Gurnam Lal, superintendent, District Jail, Ropar. Parvinder and Gurnam were earlier posted as superintendent of the Ferozepur jail. The three retired superintendents facing inquiry are: Baljeet Singh Vaid, Karanjit Singh Sandhu and Surinder Singh.
The three smugglers — Raj Kumar (Raja), Sonu Tiddi and Amrik Singh — used mobile phones from the jail even as the government keeps claiming that phone jammers are installed in the prisons. So blatant and unchecked was the phone use that of the total 43,432 phone calls made by the smugglers, 38,850 were made from the phone of Raj Kumar in one month only (March 1-31 in 2019). This means on an average 1,295 calls were made daily. That boils down to 53 calls per hour. The remaining phone calls — 4,582 — were made in almost 28 months between October 9, 2021, and February 14, 2023.
While the Punjab and Haryana High court has rapped the department for serious lapses, it has also come down heavily on the Special Services Operation Cell (SSOC) of the Punjab Police, which had arrested the smugglers. The SSOC had even registered a separate case against the three smugglers for getting Rs 1.35 crore transferred online from the jail to their wives’ accounts. Sources said the money was transferred to accounts of Renu Bala, wife of Raj Kumar, and to Geetanjali, wife of Sonu Tiddi.
