Covid-19: Yerawada Central Prison releases 1,000 inmates

PUNE: The Yerawada Central Prison, which had 5,800 inmates around two months ago, now has 4,800.
“The prison was one of the most overcrowded ones in the state for many years. We have released 200 inmates on parole, while 800 others have been released on temporary bail, so far,” the prison’s superintendent UT Pawar said, adding that the prison would release another 100 inmates either on parole or temporary bail in the next two days.
The state prisons department had decided to decongest the jails by offering inmates temporary bail and parole in view of the Covid-19 outbreak. The step was taken to maintain social distancing and to avert any infection in the prisons.
The process of decongesting the prisons started on March 26. The state government constituted a high power committee to look into the release of inmates. The prison authorities regularly communicated with the courts and other authorities to release the inmates, a senior prison official said.
The Yerawada Central Prison has an official capacity of 2,449, but it was housing around 6,000 inmates for the past 15 years on a regular basis, an officer said.
Pawar said, “The Yerawada jail has been successfully decongested because of the move and there is less of a threat of the infection spread in the prison.”
He said the inmates staying in Pune were handed over to their relatives or Pune police authorities, who took them to their homes. The inmates from Pune district were handed over to the Pune rural police. The Pune city police dropped the inmates from other districts at their district headquarters, from where the local police shifted them to their homes.
The parole period of the inmates will be extended until further orders from the state government.
The inmates will be asked to return to the prisons after receiving a notification.