E-Paper
Ludhiana jail break: Inmates escaped due to fear of coronavirus, say police
The inmates had tied their blankets together to use it as a rope for scaling the wall
A day after police nabbed an inmate, who had escaped with three others from Ludhiana Central Jail four days ago, the inmate confessed that they had escaped due to fear of coronavirus.
On Tuesday, Suraj Kumar, 26, of Sultanpur in Uttar Pradesh was nabbed from Dholewal when he was standing in a queue for langar.
During investigation, Kumar has told the police that he along with three other inmates — Ravi Kumar ,24, of Samrala, Aman Kumar,23, of Mandi Gobindgarh in Fatehgarh Sahib and Arshdeep Singh, 24, of Basti Ajit Nagar of Sangrur were afraid of getting infected with the virus in the jail. Therefore, they planned the escape, said assistant commissioner of police (East) Davinder Chaudhary.
On the wee hours of Saturday, the inmates had tied their blankets together to use it as a rope for scaling the wall. The jail authorities came to know about the jail break in the morning during daily attendance.
Chaudhary added that the police teams are conducting raids at the whereabouts of the accused and Suraj is also being questioned for more details. The other three inmates are yet to be arrested.
Suraj Kumar has been residing at Kheri Dhandara village and is facing multiple trials. He has told the police that after escaping from jail, everyone got dispersed and he stayed at Transport Nagar for a day.
The next day he had gone into hiding in Dholewal, however, when he ran out of food due to curfew, Suraj queued up to get food (langar) being distributed by an NGO.
On Tuesday, the police had received a tip off about Suraj and they arrested him from the queue.