Cell phones, knives hidden in bushes recovered from Tihar jail

The Tihar jail authorities on Wednesday recovered nine mobile phones, including an iPhone, from inside jail number 1. Five knives and two awls were also recovered in the raid, jail officials said.

The Tihar jail authorities on Wednesday recovered nine mobile phones, including an iPhone, from inside jail number 1. Five knives and two awls were also recovered in the raid, jail officials said.

Five knives and two awls were also recovered in the raid at Tihar. (HT Photo)

Additional inspector general of Tihar, Mukesh Prasad, said that on Wednesday morning they received information about mobile phones been hidden in a hole behind ward number 2.

The jail superintendent on receiving the information formed an inspection team and conducted a surprise raid. The team dug up the hole in the bushes behind ward number 2 from where the phones and the weapons were recovered. The phones were found without any sim cards. Apart from phones and weapons, the authorities recovered four chargers, a bluetooth device and an earphone.

This year the jail authorities recovered as many as 150 mobile phones from inside the prison. (HT Photo)

“We conduct raids across all jails every day. We are now ascertaining the identity of the prisoners who were using these phones. We will probe how the phones were smuggled in the prison,” said Prasad.

Prasad said that the phones would be sent to the Delhi Police crime branch to identify the owner and the calls made. Police will then probe if the phones were used to make extortion calls from inside the jail.

This year the jail authorities recovered as many as 150 mobile phones from inside the prison. Earlier this year, following the recovery of many phones the jail authorities had written to the company that installed mobile phone jammers and conducted a joint survey to probe why the jammers were ineffective. During the joint survey it was found that the prisoners had tampered with the jammers. At certain points inside the jails, the jammers were found to be ineffective.

“Prisoners have also become very clever. Some cellular network works inside the jail and the prisoners know about it. They use the sim cards of only that particular network. We also found that the wires of the jammers were tampered with,” said a jail official.