Jail or a jape?

Jails should house criminals with twin aims of serving the sentence by the criminal and to reform the criminal as well. There are criminals , however, of such nature who can pose security threat to the society and the country as well and in case of such hardened and “committed” non -ordinary criminals , the thumb rule must be “put them in jail and throw away the key”. It is unbelievable that mobile telephones, pen drives, sharp edged weapons, LPG cylinders, stoves, electric heaters, deep freezers and several other incriminating items were found in Jammu’s ‘high security’ Kot Bhalwal Jail. This all came to limelight in search operation conducted by Special Operation Group (SOG) and Kot Bhalwal Jail authorities jointly inside the jail premises on January 20 .The immediate question that strikes the mind is as to who could be the connoisseur behind housing and owning such variety of items in the jail barracks strictly proscribed and in gross violation of Jail Manual and Rules.
Are security and search audits being conducted at regular intervals without anyone excepting the search teams knowing about it and are reports on the findings prepared, action taken thereon and the areas of weaknesses or concerns ensured not to take place repeatedly .Had this principle strictly been adhered to , most probably all these live instances of blatant breaches in the utmost amount of surveillance would have not surfaced . The matter attains degrees of seriousness looking to the fact that this jail housed number of Pakistani and Kashmiri militants. How did all these items find their way direct into the barracks of the convicts and which are not needles or tiny items but things like LPG cylinders and deep freezers being found out there, reveal the quality and professionalism of the jail administration . It is a question of fixing up of accountability and taking any lenient view in the matter could boomerang into chain of acts of sheer recklessness in future. Smuggling of undesirable items inside the jail could have more connotations in a state infested with Pakistani sponsored terrorism and violence.
Can jail premises be converted into such confusion and an apparent mess where personal whims of some convicts appeared writ large on their faces and could all these security breaches be possible unless some type of connivance from the jail insiders was there who otherwise are supposed to be deterrents of such violations of Jail Rules. After all, what had the pen drives got to “load” from inside the jail to be “exported” from there and for what purposes, needs to be examined and facts ascertained? How could some utensils be converted into sharp -edged knives , scissors and rods and what were the ‘manufacturers’ of these items up to, needs to be probed into to rule out the possibility of planning of some big jail- break . We have the golden axiom written boldly at prominent and sensitive places “Savdhani hatti aur durghatna ghatti” but in Jails it should not only be written but modified as “Savdhani ghatti aur durghatna ghatti”, the former “ghatti” denoting as ‘lessened’ . It hardly needs to be emphasised that in a jail where more than 560 prisoners are housed including many Pakistanis and Kashmiri militants , the watch , vigil and surveillance should be of top professional efficiency . Security, search and surveillance audit should be conducted at regular intervals followed by due monitoring .

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