Nagpur: Prison authorities across the state have been alerted by top officials to watch out for Covid symptoms among inmates or staffers after the infection cases were reported from high security ‘anda cell’ in Nagpur Central Jail.
Jail barracks and offices are being fumigated and sanitized on war-footing to stop further spread of the infection.
Over 2,000 inmates and 400 jail staffers had tested positive across the prisons in Maharashtra in the first leg of the pandemic last year. Following a high-level committee decision, more than 10,000 inmates were released on temporary bail or parole to avoid congestion in jails. Despite this, prisons had turned into Covid hotspots with Yerawada Central Jail reporting highest number of inmates testing positive, followed by Nagpur Central Jail.
Maoist ideologue and former Delhi University professor GN Saibaba and gangster Arun Gawli were among the ‘anda cell’ inmates to have tested Covid positive along with eight others.
“The ‘anda cell’ has three wings. The infection has spread in two of them. It’s likely that the prisoners may have contracted the infection during the few hours when they are allowed to step out into the open space and mingle with others,’ said a jail official.
The jail official also did not rule out the possibility of the infection passing from a cell guard to the inmates. “We have fortified the diet of the inmates of ‘anda cell’ with ‘kadha’ (herbal concoction) and other immunity boosters,” said the official.
Additional director general, state prisons, Sunil Ramanand, said instructions have been issued to jail authorities across the state to shift anyone spotted with symptoms to hospitals or medical facilities for Covid testing. “Apart from Nagpur, there was no information about Covid cases resurfacing in any other jail. We are reinforcing all Covid measures and reviving the strict protocols in jails,” he said. “We are now keeping track of the situation through daily reporting system,” he added.
Ramanand also said after Covid cases decreased, the number of jail quarantine centres were reduced, but now makeshift facilities have been kept ready for any emergency use. “As the schools in which we had set up quarantine facilities are now not in our possession, every jail has been asked to create separate area for such a facility within the premises,” he said.