From Our Staff
Reporter
NEW DELHI, July 4. A prisoner in Jail No. 4 Ward No.3 in Tihar, wants a
fellow-prisoner to be shifted elsewhere as he was ‘fomenting communal tensions’
‘The man claims to be a leader of Hindus and is always fighting. Please madam, do justice by
transferring this person. Everybody fears him so no one wants to report.’ The complaint which
was put in the mobile petition box has now been entered in the Prisoners Grievances Register and
has been brought to the notice of the Inspector General, Prisons. An enquiry is on.
Another prisoner, a woman, requests in writing that her
husband, who is also in the jail, be shifted from a particular ward because ‘smack was being
sold there and he might become an addict.’ Not only is the person shifted, the jail
administration takes steps to ensure that contraband is not sold.
A convict under NDPS Act has a suggestion on how to stop
use of narcotics inside the jail. The suggestion is simple, he writes. ‘Just remove the
silver foil from the cigarette packets that are sold in the jail. Without the foil the addict
cannot light up.’ The suggestion is taken and the Inspector General recommends a reward for
him. A prisoner is rewarded with an extra cake of bathing soap and washing soap for his
suggestions on how to save on electricity and vegetables.
Nothing unusual about complaint chits and applications put in the petition box.
The unusual part is that, every complaint or grievance is now brought to the notice of a gazetted
officer in the jail administration. In a marked departure from earlier practice, the key of the
petition box is not with the jail superintendent. It is opened in the administration wing by a
gazetted officer.
According to Ms Kiran Bedi, IG, Prisons, such a system
allows more freedom to the prisoners in airing their complaints. Earlier, when the box was kept
inside the ward, there was possibility of a jail warder or a superintendent removing an
application from the box. Besides,  |
the
prisoner could always be stopped from putting an application in the box in the first place.
Making the petition box mobile was one of the number of
changes brought about in the administration of Tihar Jail. A constable appointed by the IG takes
the box to the prisoners and gets it back to the office where it is opened by an officer. The
complainant is given an acknowledgement card (pink) and another card (green) after action is
taken. Applications are received twice a day. The result — in the last one month since the
new scheme started, over 800 applications were received by the staff.
The complaints range from lack of amenities, quality of
food, need of medical aid, to harassment by jail staff and corruption. Ms Bedi says that through
the application she knows exactly what happens inside. In fact a number of cases of corruption
were detected through such complaints. One warder was shifted because of complaint of
misbehaviour. He, the complainant wrote, treated prisoners like animals. The complainant’s
identity is kept confidential if he so requests or if the officer feels that it is required for
his safety.
The content of these letters are revealing. During one
week, for instance, there were 54 applications seeking medical help, 10 complaining about food,
four about water, three about electricity and 17 about corrup- tion. Quite a few prisoners seem to
have been impressed by the changes being brought about in the prison. A foreigner lodged in the
prison writes ‘The jail seems all the more clean. It seems that a messiah has landed. I use
this ample opportunity to express my ordeal to your honor, hoping and looking forward to seeing
equity prevail . . .’ But flattery does not work. The DIG, Prisons, Mr J. D. Sarangi, said
that it was not necessary that the complainants were right. Therefore an enquiry is a must.
And, changed environment does not mean that prisoners can
take undue advantage. Like this one who wanted songs and ghazals by Ataullah Khan be played on the
speakers. The jail staff entered it dutifully in the register with the remark that such a thing
was not possible. |
