New Delhi: With under trial prisoners often
smuggling in blades from courts during hearings and using them
to attack other inmates, Tihar jail authorities have decided
to move court seeking their trial through video conferencing.
Incidents of Tihar jail prisoners using surgical
blades to settle scores with other inmates or officials have
become more of a routine than an exception, authorities at the
high security prison said.
Inmates pick up surgical blades, razor blades or paper
pins when they go to courts for hearings, smuggle them in and
use them to attack others. These are difficult to detect as
they hide the blades in the soles of their shoes or keep them
stacked inside their body cavities, they said.
Jail authorities have tried all means to check
smuggling of such banned items inside the prison premises but
are surprised that majority of inmates even risk their lives
to smuggle blades into the prison.
"We have decided to request the court to conduct
trials of inmates involved in blade attacks and who are
dangerous for other inmates and officials through video
conferencing facility," Neeraj Kumar DG Tihar Prisons said.
"These inmates pick up blades and banned items when
they go to the court and smuggle them inside the prison which
they later use to settle scores with some fellow inmate or an
official. They hide it in their body cavities at times risking
their lives. One inmate had carried it in his throat and he
had to be operated upon to take it out.
"The only solution to this problem was to stop their
visit to the court. Names of a total of 120 such inmates have
been listed in the written request we have prepared to submit
to the court," he said.
PTI
