Dy jailer colluded with 8 inmates to supply drugs, phones in prison: Cops

Gurgaon: The irony will not be lost on anyone at Bhondsi jail. Dharmabir Chautala, who till last week went around telling inmates that he was slated to become the next jail superintendent, will now be sharing a cell with some of them. On Saturday, the deputy jail superintendent, who was arrested for smuggling drugs and SIM cards to inmates, was remanded in judicial custody.
Chautala, who made hefty money selling smartphones and SIM cards to inmates at Bhondsi, will not have a phone to himself. Like other prisoners, he can talk to family members only during the designated visiting hours. He may also have to work in the same manufacturing unit that he headed as the deputy jailer.
Chautala was caught red-handed receiving a 250 gram packet of drugs and 11 SIM cards from a peddler in his quarters on Wednesday night. Sources said he had admitted before investigators that he would supply phones, drugs and SIM cards to inmates of Bhondsi jail against a price.
On Saturday, a second round of checks yielded four more cellphones from the possession of prisoners. In the past two days, 16 phones have been recovered in total. Two separate FIRs have been registered at Bhondsi police station in this regard.The IMEI numbers of all the phones, which are used by law enforcement agencies to track a device, were found to have been erased.
Sources said the SIM cards inserted in these phones had been procured with fake documents from some tribal areas of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. “The phones and SIM cards have been sent to the forensic lab for testing,” said an officer associated with the investigation of the case. He added that police were trying to find the details of numbers that had been dialled from these phones. Police have agreed that the easy access to phones inside the jail posed a challenge in prevention of crime. Many criminals operate their gangs from inside the prison — even murders are believed to have been planned via calls from there.
Officers said Chautala was in touch with at least eight prisoners who would act as middlemen for supplying drugs and phones inside the jail. One of them was Goldy, who was arrested along with the deputy jailer on Wednesday.
It was Goldy who would procure the phones, SIM cards and drugs and bring them to Chautala. Goldy was lodged in Bhondsi jail in connection with a murder in 2008 and came in contact with Chautala during his stay there.
He came out of jail after being acquitted in the case and soon struck a deal with the deputy jailer for the supply of phones and drugs. Police said they were trying to find out if more officers of the jail are involved in the drug supply racket. “On Saturday, a few more mobile phones were recovered from inmates of Bhondsi jail. A further investigation is on to find out if more people are involved,” ACP (crime) Preet Pal Sangwan said.