On video, gangsters in UP jail order booze, extort money over phone
The state’s home and prison department suspended the Raebareli jail senior superintendent, jailer, deputy jailer and three other personnel after the video went viral
A video of inmates drinking and making an extortion call inside the district jail in Uttar Pradesh’s Raebareli is being widely shared on social media, prompting authorities to suspends six prison officials.
The viral video shows shooters Sohrab and Anshu Dixit partying inside their barrack along with four others and using a mobile phone to demand money from a trader.
In the video, Dixit is heard asking the person over the phone to provide ₹10,000 to the jailer at his residence and ₹5,000 to deputy jailer. He also asks the man to deliver liquor and other things inside the jail. Few bullets are seen lying on Dixit’s bed.
Principal secretary (home and prisons) Arvind Kumar said senior superintendent of Raebareli district jail Pramod Kumar Mishra, jailer Govind Ram Mishra, deputy jailer Ram Chandra Tewari, head warder Lalta Prasad Pandey and two warders Ganga Ram and Shiv Mangal Singh were suspended on Monday.
A departmental inquiry has also been initiated against all the officers over their alleged negligence in allowing mobile phones, liquor, cigarettes, other eatables and objectionable items inside the jail, Kumar said.
Additional director general (prison) Chandra Prakash said deputy inspector general (prison headquarters) Umesh Srivastava has been ordered to inquire into the matter and recommended further action against the alleged jail officials. He said Srivastava has reached Raebareli on Monday morning.
Prakash said the initial inquiry suggested the video was prepared by the jail inmates before November 2 and intentionally made viral on social media. He said the four jail inmates visible in the video have already been transferred to different jails on November 19.
He said Dixit has been shifted to Pratapgarh jail, Nikhil Sonker to Sultanpur jail, Ajit Chaubey to Barabanki jail and Shringar Singh to Fatehpur jail. He said two other jail inmates Sohrab and Sandeep Singh were shifted to Delhi’s Tihar jail and Sultanpur jail respectively following their court dates around a week before the viral video surfaced.
Jail officials had searched the barracks on November 21 during which four mobile phones were recovered from inmates featuring in the video. The jail superintendent had also lodged a first information report against the inmates and other unidentified people for violating jail norms and smuggling banned objects inside the jail.
The Raebareli district magistrate and superintendent of police had carried out a separate search on November 25 during which several contrabands like cigarettes, lighter, sweets and dry fruits were recovered from different barracks.
The state prisons administration and reform services department said earlier it had increased the security in jails and curbed the nexus between criminal and prison personnel after gangster Prem Prakash Singh alias Munna Bajrangi was killed inside Baghpat district jail on July 9 earlier this year.
Bajrangi’s murder had exposed security lapses inside jails and the influence of another gangster Sunil Rathi inside the Baghpat jail on local jail administration as well as its inmates. Rathi, who was also lodged at Baghpat jail, had allegedly shot dead Bajrangi after smuggling a pistol and multiple cartridges inside the jail.
