Female undertrail tries to sneak in with phone at Tihar

When brought to a Tihar sub-jail’s entrance, a 40-year-old undertrial passed through the metal detector and allowed the guards to put her belongings through an X-Ray scanner. ABHISHEK SHARAN reports.

When brought to a Tihar sub-jail’s entrance, a 40-year-old undertrial passed through the metal detector and allowed the guards to put her belongings through an X-Ray scanner.

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But all hell broke loose when three women constables, belonging to the Tamil Nadu Special Police tasked with ensuring security at the high profile central jail complex, tried to frisk Sunita Kumari (name changed). Kumari allegedly tried to resist the constables.

Around 25 minutes later, after Kumari had relented, the constables recovered sophisticated mobile phones and two SIM cards from her person. The incident occurred on Friday.

“She had hidden the mobile phone and two SIM cards inside her private parts,” said a jail source who wished to remain anonymous.

The recovered articles, which are banned inside the jail, were wrapped in a carbon sheet inside a plastic foil. “The carbon sheet was meant to avoid detection by the metal detector,” the source said.

Kumari, according to the source, had relented for a body frisking only after the intervention on sub-jail six (meant for women) deputy superintendent Mina Lookher.

As a punishment, the jail authorities restricted the inmate from meeting her relatives for two months. Currently, there are eight mobile jammers set around eight sub-jails. Plans are afoot to set up a few more such jammers to prevent use of mobile communication by inmates.

But this case isn’t an exception. A few months ago a mobile phone was recovered from the “private parts” of a male inmate, a jail source said. “Inmates have a code word for private parts of a body, ‘Godrej’. They say banned substances can be easily smuggled inside a ‘Godrej’.”