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Amritsar jail’s medical officer held for supplying drugs to inmates
The MO was arrested based on a tip-off received by the jail’s security staff. The jail officials have also recovered 194 gm of white powder suspected to be heroin from the accused
The Amritsar Central Jail officials on Tuesday arrested a medical officer (MO) Davinder Singh for allegedly supplying drugs to inmates inside the prison premises.
The MO was arrested based on a tip-off received by the jail’s security staff. The jail officials have also recovered 194 gm of white powder suspected to be heroin from the accused.
Davinder, who had been posted in the prison for providing health-related facilities to the inmates, has been handed over to the Punjab Police special task force (STF).
Amritsar jail superintendent Surinder Singh said, “We had information that Davinder would sneak drugs inside the jail premises for inmates. Acting on the information, our team arrested him, and the drug was seized.”
He said it was not immediately clear whether the arrested accused had supplied drugs to inmates earlier also.
“The accused will be questioned by the investigating agency for further information,” he added.
Meanwhile, Punjab jails minister Harjot Singh Bains tweeted: “In a special under cover operation, we have red handedly caught Jail Medical Officer posted at Amritsar Jail, Dr Davinder Singh while delivering two packets of 194 gm of white narcotic powder (seems to be heroin) to two inmates. An FIR was lodged & the accused was handed over to STF.”
Earlier on October 20, the minister had conducted a surprise check in the high-security jail here, which led to the recovery of eight mobile phones.
On October 23, the jail authorities recovered 13 mobiles from 15 inmates during a search operation. The search operation and the minister’s visit came days after a video from inside the jail had gone viral on social media. The purported video showed several inmates inhaling drugs.
After the surprise checking, the jails minister revealed that following a survey of all the jails in Punjab, around 46 % of 33,000 inmates were found to be drug addicts. He had said the number of prisoners keen to get de-addiction treatment in jails was very small.
