Family meetings cancelled at Delhi’s three prisons in view of Covid-19 spread

According to jail rules, prisoners are allowed to meet their family members twice a week.

In the backdrop of increasing Covid-19 cases across the city, the biweekly meeting between prisoners and their families at Delhi’s three jails -- Tihar, Rohini and Mandoli -- has been suspended, effective April 5, the director general (prisons) Sandeep Goel said on Friday.

Security personnel guard gate No. 3 of Tihar Jail. (Vipin Kumar/Hindustan Times)

With 11,994 active Covid-19 cases across the city as on Friday, and a daily positivity rate of 4.11% -- up from 0.17% only a little more than a month ago (February 16) -- the Delhi government has said the fourth wave of the infection is currently underway in the national capital.

Prison authorities said they decided to suspend the family meetings to ensure that the infection is not transmitted within the prison walls. According to jail rules, prisoners are allowed to meet their family members twice a week.

After remaining suspended since the start of the lockdown in March 2020, the biweekly visits were resumed in October. Families were initially allowed inside the prison complex only once a week and that too in different batches. Prison officers said it is important to suspend the meetings because unlike last year, when around 5,000 prisoners were out on Covid-19 special parole or interim bail, almost 90% of prisoners have returned to jails in February and March. Last year, as one of the first measures to decongest jails, prisoners were released on bail/parole and were directed to surrender later.

“We will review the situation a fortnight from now and take a call on restoring the meetings. We are monitoring the situation,” a senior prison officer said, asking not to be named.

Currently housing around 18,000 prisoners, the Tihar prison complex is the most crowded jail across the country.

Goel said while family meetings have been suspended, the meeting of inmates with their legal counsels will continue, with proper Covid precautions. “Also, telephone and the facility of e-mulaqat (virtual meetings) will continue to be available to inmates to contact their families,” he said.

The prisons department has also started vaccinating prisoners within the complex. At least 60 prisoners have got the jabs in the past one week.

There are 10 Covid-19 positive prisoners currently. Till date, the prison department has reported two deaths from the disease. A total of 423 prisoners and jail officers have been infected since March 2020.