Surprise check conducted in Madurai Central Prison

MADURAI: A surprise search was conducted in the Madurai Central Prison on Sunday morning to check the usage of banned things like cellphones and ganja. No banned item was found during the search which had lasted for a couple of hours.
There are more than 2,000 convict and remand prisoners in the prison. Officials said that all the cells on the prison premises had been searched thoroughly. Though it was a periodical search, it had been kept a secret till the morning.
“We started assembling personnel at 5am and entered the prisons before the inmates are let out of their cells. Cellphone and ganja are the mostly used illegal things inside prison. Searches are being conducted once in a fortnight or once in three weeks. No major seizure was made in the last few searches,” said a police officer.
The search was conducted jointly by the Madurai city police and prison authorities. It was led by deputy inspector general of police, Madurai prisons, D Pazhani.
More than 150 officers and personnel were involved in the search. Assistant commissioner of police, Thilagar Thidal range, Vetriselvan and a couple of police inspectors led the city police team. A few woman police personnel conducted searches in the women’s prison.