Anant Singh among 31 booked for Beur jail violence

Former MLA Anant Singh and 30 others have been charged with attempting to break out of Beur Central Jail in Patna, India, and attacking prison staff. Singh, who is housed in the jail, alleges a conspiracy to kill him. 11 prison employees were injured in the incident.

The administration of Beur Central Jail in Patna on Tuesday registered an FIR against 31 people, including former MLA Anant Singh who is housed there, for alleged jail break attempt and attack on the prison staff.

Former Mokama MLA Anant Singh. (HT FILE)

Patna senior superintendent of police (SSP) Rajiv Mishra said the FIR (first information report) was lodged on the statement of jail superintendent Jitendra Kumar with the Beur police station in Bihar’s capital.

According to the FIR, on July 16, Anant Singh and his supporters first attacked warden Anirudh Kumar Baitha. As assistant superintendent Bhutes Kumar reach there to intervene between them, the prisoners thrashed him too. They also thrashed warders Sanjiv Kumar Shah and Gautam Kumar, snatched keys of cells and set free the prisoners, besides damaging CCTV cameras installed inside the jail.

Altogether, 11 prison employees were injured in the incident and most of them under going treatment in a hospital, the FIR says.

Earlier the same day, a few inmates and prison staff were injured in a scuffle that broke out as some prisoners led by Anant Singh protested over their ward being “deliberately kept open”.

The former MLA from Mokama has alleged that a conspiracy was being hatched to kill him inside the jail premises.

Patna district magistrate (DM) Dr Chandrasekhar Singh said he has ordered an inquiry into the matter and sought a report while a prison official has been suspended. “We have already shifted 50 inmates from Beur jail to other jails of the state. Some others will be shifted soon. The undertrial prisoners who have to appear in the court cannot be shifted,” he said.

The former MLA has been housed in Beur jail after a special court in Patna last year sentenced him to 10 years of rigorous imprisonment in connection with a 2015 case of recovery of arms from his Patna residence.

Singh has won five times from Mokama assembly constituency — thrice as a candidate of chief minister Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United), once as an Independent and in 2020 from the Rashtriya Janata Dal.