Punjab jails dept planning setting up of ‘dead zones’ in Amritsar, Kapurthala prisons

After encouraging results from trial runs in the Bathinda Central Jail, the Punjab prisons department is planning setting up of “dead zones” in Kapurthala and Amritsar jails

Chandigarh: After encouraging results from trial runs in the Bathinda Central Jail, the Punjab prisons department is planning setting up of “dead zones” in Kapurthala and Amritsar jails.

After encouraging results from trial runs in the Bathinda Central Jail, the Punjab prisons department is planning setting up of “dead zones” in Kapurthala and Amritsar jails.

‘Dead zone’ is a concept introduced by the jails department comprising special cells where there is no signal to operate mobile phones. The measures include jamming of all mobile networks, said officials privy to the development.

With no let up in the recovery of mobile phones from inside jails, the special task force (STF) against drugs had suggested the state government to convert certain jails into ‘dead zones’.

The officials of the jail’s department are of the view that the ‘dead zone’ concept has curtailed notorious activities of dreaded criminals from inside the jails to an extent and if trials done in Bathinda are implemented under one strategy, more results would come.

“Even as trials of jamming all network in and around 3-5 km radius of the jail was found to be the foolproof idea to curb the activities of criminals from inside jails, its implementation in is not possible as it will affect the communication of people living in the vicinity,” a senior official said.

In past over one year, the department have done trials in Bathinda jail by jamming all networks by installing own towers and lodging dreaded inmates in high-security area guarded by the central forces and curtailing time of inmates outside the cells.

Senior officials of the department say as per trials in the Bathinda jail, the most successful was jamming the network by using own towers.

Punjab jails have been in the news for wrong reasons in the recent past. Notwithstanding tall claims by governments to curb the activities of hardcore criminals lodged inside Punjab prisons, almost all major crimes, be it the high-profile murder of Punjabi singer Sidhu Moose Wala, or the RPG attack on Punjab Police’s intelligence headquarters in Mohali, were planned from jails. Hardcore criminals and gangsters run their operations from prisons as they are in touch with their aides through mobile phones, said officials.

“Under the dead zone concept, all mobile network systems are put on a single tower. Whenever any inmate uses the signal from this tower, it will be jammed,” said a senior department functionary.

The ‘dark zone’ is also guarded by a three-tier security, including the CRPF personnel, to keep close watch on the activities of the gangsters lodged inside the jail.

A trial was also conducted to curtail the movement of inmates by increasing their confinement inside the cells to 22 hours as compared to the ordinary inmates who are freed from the cells for nine hours.

However, the move was challenged by seven gangsters and their family members in the Punjab and Haryana high court citing it as ‘quasi-solitary’ confinement in violation of rights guaranteed under Article 21. To this, the court suggested some measures that can be taken to lodge these criminals.

“We are analysing the results of our trials done in past over two years. A strategy is being contemplated to come out with a uniform strategy and implement it in Kapurthala and Amritsar Central Jails as well,” a senior jail department functionary said, not wishing to be named.

Last month, a team of Punjab jails department visited Telangana to study the prisons model there. “Even as the prison department is not using jamming technology, they have studied a few other strategies which we will be implementing in our jail as well,” the official said.