E-Paper
Lift ban on meetings in jails across Punjab: Bikram Majithia
Former minister Bikram Majithia urged the Punjab government to lift the ban on jail meetings in state prisons for both convicts and undertrials keeping in view the end of Covid restrictions in public life
Former minister Bikram Singh Majithia on Wednesday urged the Punjab government to lift the ban on jail meetings in state prisons for both convicts and undertrials keeping in view the end of Covid restrictions in public life.
The former minister, who is currently lodged in the Patiala jail, and undergoing judicial custody pending a drugs case registered against him last year, has written to the chief secretary, Punjab, principal secretary, jails, as well as the ADGP, prisons.
“While in judicial custody on account of a false and politically motivated FIR by the Congress government, it had come to my notice that convicts, as well as undertrials, had been denied visitation rights since the start of the Covid for two years now,” he wrote in the letter.
He added that this was being done despite the fact that all Covid restrictions had been done away with in Punjab and even leisure activities like gyms, theatres and restaurants had been allowed to resume.
Asserting that this issue concerned the fundamental rights of prisoners, Majithia said other states, including Tamil Nadu and Madhya Pradesh, which had a higher incidence of Covid, had resumed regular prison meetings.
Calling for a restart of normal visitation rights, Majithia said prisons should not be subject to a separate set of rules.
He said it was also depriving prisoners of the right to meet their families, manage their affairs and follow up their cases in earnest, adding that as an elected representative he could not keep his eyes and ears shut to the discrimination being meted out to jail inmates.
