Temporary jail in Ghaziabad for suspects of coronavirus-related cases

Earlier in April, the Ghaziabad police had picked up several persons from the Sahibabad area, including some citizens of Nepal and Indonesia.

On directions of the Uttar Pradesh home department, Ghaziabad district will soon set up a temporary jail where those who attacked police personnel and healthcare workers, those linked to the Tablighi Jamaat event in Delhi who had hid their association history, and foreign nationals apprehended during the lockdown will be lodged. The state director general (prisons) said the temporary jails have started to come up in 34 districts across the state.

District magistrate and police officials during their visit to Adhyatmik Nagar inter college where a temporary jail is proposed for people linked to Tablighi Jamaat and people accused of attacking healthcare workers, in Ghaziabad. (Sakib Ali / Hindustan Times)

In Ghaziabad, it will be set up at Adhyatmik Nagar near Dasna, where district magistrate Ajay Shankar Pandey and senior superintendent of police Kalanidhi Naithani went for inspection on Thursday afternoon.

“A facility at Adhyatmik Nagar has been identified and inspection was done to assess facilities. A final decision for a temporary jail will soon be made. The facility should be able to house those -- about 282 so far -- who attended various religious congregations or foreign nationals apprehended in Ghaziabad,” Pandey added.

Earlier in April, the Ghaziabad police had picked up several persons from the Sahibabad area, including some citizens of Nepal and Indonesia.

UP’s Director General (DG – prisons) Anand Kumar said: “The district magistrate is empowered to make temporary jails and decide the location as well. The idea behind this is to keep the usual inmates lodged in regular jails away from the people linked to the Tablighi Jamaat event, the foreign nationals or those arrested for attacking police and healthcare staff, due to the coronavirus threat,” Kumar said.

“Many of these persons are in isolation or quarantine and will be shifted to the temporary jails once they complete their isolation/quarantine period. Here, they will be under judicial custody,” he added.

According to official records, 11 districts in the state have so far set up temporary jails where a total of 132 Indian nationals and 156 foreign nationals are lodged. The rest of the 23 districts where temporary jails are going to be set up include Ghaziabad, Meerut, Baghpat, Agra and Mathura.

“There is a provision in the jail manual where the district magistrate is empowered to create such jails in times of emergency situations like an epidemic, etc. With the creation of these temporary jails we do not wish to bring into contact any of our regular inmates with people who have Covid-19 disease,” Kumar added.

According to official records, there are 71 regular prisons in the state which house about 90,000 inmates at present. Ghaziabad has a regular prison at Dasna.

District magistrate Ajay Shankar Pandey said people who attended religious congregations and even foreign nationals nabbed in Ghaziabad have almost “saturated.”

“We have a figure of about 282 such persons and our area is now saturated. We don’t expect more people to be found further. However, the Ghaziabad police are keeping a watch with the help of surveillance activities,” DM Pandey said.

After the inspection of the proposed temporary jail at Adhyatmik Nagar, the DM on Thursday evening gave directions to different departments, including the police, to make arrangements for barricading, CCTVs, deployment of police force, electricity connections and proper cleaning and sanitisation of the premises.

Under the electronic surveillance measures, the police obtain CDRs of suspects and can track their contacts and also their locations with the help of data obtained from the cellular operators.

Police said they have so far tracked or assisted in more 1,000 cases linked to the Covid-19 disease and have so far tracked about 200 Covid-19 positive patients or their close contacts in Ghaziabad.

“The surveillance activities are regularly going on and are being taken up on requests of the health department. We have taken care of hundreds of requests which have come from police of other states and also from various districts in UP. The electronic surveillance is taken up in order to find the movement of suspects or their close contacts. In Ghaziabad alone we have tracked about 200 persons who are either positive cases or their close contacts,” said Prakash Kumar, superintendent of police (crime).

He added that most of the cases tracked by the district police were linked to people who had attended religious congregations and even related to Ceasefire, the Noida-based company from which a large number of cases – 45 in Gautam Budh Nagar and over 17 in other districts -- had come.