Five SP rank IPS officers to monitor activities in U.P. jails
The state government’s move to complete overhauling of prison facilities comes in the wake of the recent case of MLA Abbas Ansari, who was illegally allowed to have secret meetings with his wife Nikhat Bano and operate his business inside the Chitrakoot jail.
Lucknow Monitoring of conduct and working of jail officers and personnel, curbing mafioso-jail personnel nexus, keeping tabs on the working of tainted jail staff, disposal of pending inquiries, welfare of prisoners and decongesting prisons are some of the tasks likely to be allotted to five superintendent of police (SP) rank Indian Police Service (IPS) officers posted in UP prisons administration and reform services department recently on Monday.
The state government’s move to complete overhauling of prison facilities comes in the wake of the recent case of MLA Abbas Ansari, who was illegally allowed to have secret meetings with his wife Nikhat Bano and operate his business inside the Chitrakoot jail. In another such case, it was found that mafioso Atiq Ahmad’s brother Ashraf received special facilities to meet his aides and carry out criminal activities from jail. The meetings were not even logged into the register of Bareilly jail.
On Tuesday, the state government had suspended three senior jail superintendents, including Sashikant Singh of Naini Central Jail in Prayagraj, Rajeev Shukla of Bareilly jail and Avinash Gautam of Banda jail, for ‘dereliction of duty’ and ‘extending help to prominent mafia lodged in their respective prisons. Moreover, senior IPS officer Anand Kumar, who remained DG Prison for nearly three years, was removed from the post and sent as DG Cooperative Cell on March 31 and SN Sabat was made new DG Prison.
Sabat said the supervision of nine jail ranges would improve with these five SP rank officers joining the department. He explained that all 75 district jails, sub -jails and central prisons across the state were divided into nine ranges and proper supervision was not done due to several vacant posts in the department. Around 20 new high-tech jails have also come up in different districts within two to five years which will increase the work.
He said these SP rank officers would be given charge of these jail ranges for more effective supervision of prisons and activities going on there. He said three officers, including Hemant Kutiyal, Himanshu Kumar and Shiv Hari Meena had already reported to the prison headquarters while two others were still to report.
He said the supervision of these ranges would be given to these officers for more effective monitoring of conduct and working of jail officers and personnel, curbing mafioso-jail staff nexus, keeping tabs on the working of tainted jail employees, disposal of pending inquires, welfare of prisoners and decongesting jails.
Notably, two IPS officers Shiv Hari Meena and Subash Chandra Shakya have been given full time postings in the prison department while three other officers Hemant Kutiyal, Himanshu Kumar and Rajesh Kumar Srivastava have been given additional charge apart from their primary responsibilities in Special Security Force, PAC and security headquarters respectively.