Punjab jail on sale: Mobiles, cigarettes allowed at a price, inmates exploited, sodomised

It's Udta Punjab in real life. Drugs, alcohol, sex and corrupt officials in khaki.

A youth on the request of anonymity has come forward with allegations of a flourishing drug trade and corrupt jail officials in Punjab.

The youth hails from Kapurthala district of Punjab. His elder brother was arrested and jailed by the Punjab Police on charges of murder five years ago when he was just 20. This youth who was hesitant to come on record says he paid nearly Rs 60,000 to his brother who wanted to use a mobile phone in the jail besides getting the barrack of his choice. The money, according to him was paid by his brother to the Kapurthala jail officers.

Family members of nine Kapurthala jail undertrials and convicts in a letter written to the registrar Punjab and Haryana High Court have levelled serious allegations against the jail authorities.

Targeting the Kapurthala jail superintendent Surender Pal Khanna they have accused him of exploiting the jail inmates.

According to Vikram Satpal Anand, advocate, Punjab and Haryana High Court one single paracetamol tablet is sold for Rs 500 in Kapurthala Central Jail. A single bundle of beedis is sold for Rs 250 and a single cigarette is sold for Rs 300 and if you want to use a mobile phone just pay Rs 5,000 to the jailer and call anywhere without any worry.

AIDS-INFECTED CONVICTS USED TO TERRORISE THE TRIALS

According to Vikram Satpal Anand the accused jailer Surender Khanna uses convicts who have AIDS to terrorize the healthy convicts. The victims are then asked to pay money to shift the AIDS patient to a designated barrack.

Gangsters also pay money to save their lives. Dreaded gangsters are also being exploited by the corrupt jail officers. They are threatened to put in the barrack of rival gangs. The gangsters are then asked to pay money for not changing their barrack.

JAIL INMATES ARE SODOMIZED

Gurdeep Inder Singh Dhillon, a lawyer, who is contesting cases of some jail inmates, has said the undertrials and convicts in Punjab jails are also sodomized by the sex-starved convicts, a sizeable chunk of whom are infected with AIDS .

The accused jailer is already facing a similar case which is pending in Punjab and Haryana High Court. He is accused of beating-up a doctor in Ludhiana who served as a jail doctor. The accused jailer would ask the doctor to charge Rs 5,000 for an injection from the jail inmates but when he refused, he was severely beaten up there. The doctor approached the Punjab and Haryana High Court which has ordered a probe into the allegations.

The accused jailer Surender Pal Khanna was not available for a comment and refused to come on camera.

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