Punjab Police conducts state wide major search operation in most of jails

Recovery Of Large Numbers Of Mobiles And SIMs
Chandigarh, May 8: The Punjab Police today conducted a state wide major search operation in most of jails jointly with the Prison Department and Civil administration in the early hours of the morning as a part of its ongoing drive to ensure that the jails in Punjab are free of objectionable/prohibited material and do not become house for drugs and organized crime. It may be mentioned here that yesterday while in an informal interaction with media persons, Punjab DGP Mr.Suresh Arora had categorically said that special emphasis would be laid on strengthening the jails not only by providing required number of police officers but also enhancing electronic surveillance in the form of installing more jammers and CCTV to cover every nook and corner of jails.

Disclosing this here today a spokesman of Punjab Police informed that this search operation was undertaken in Amritsar , Hoshiarpur, Gurdaspur, Tarntaran, Fazilka, Moga, Faridkot, Mansa, Sri Muktsar Sahib and maximum security jail Nabha, Modern Jail Nabha, Patiala, Sangrur, Ropar jails and Sub jail Barnala simultaneously. This operation results in recovery of number of mobile phones, sim cards besides tablets being used as drugs by inmates.

The spokesman revealed that Mr. Amar Singh Chahal, Commissioner of Police, Amritsar led team which comprises one DCP, 5 ADCP, 5 ACPs, 17 SHOs, 60 NGOs, 500 EPOs and 50 Lady Constables along with Jail Superintendent and other officials and Civil officials undertook this gigantic task and succeeded in recovering 21 Mobile phones (four smart phones and 17 normal phones) 5 batteries of mobiles, 02 mobile chargers, 11 charging leads, 03 head phones, 8 sim cards, 02 memory cards , Rs. 14340 cash, 05 bundles od bidis, and 11 silver foils. Besides this, 20 tablets of 0.5 mg of clonazepam, 9 tablets of colazepam were also recovered. FIR u/s 52 A of Prisons Act and u/s 21,22 NDPS Act has been registered in PS Cantonment, Amritsar.
The spokesman further informed that SSP Hoshiarpur Mr. Kuldeep Singh Chahal led police team recovered one mobile phone along with charger from Hoshiarpur jail. SSP Gurdaspur Mr. Jagdeep Singh Hundal led police team recovered 430 gms narcotic powder besides 6 mobile phones and one sim card. SP(Investigation) Tarntaran Mr. Jagmohan Singh led police team recovered 12 mobile phones, 4 sim cards and Rs 5500/- cash.

Similarly in Bathinda zone, SSP Mansa Mr. Mukhwinder Singh led police team recovered four mobile phones, one sim card and two mobile batteries during search of Mansa jail. SSP Fazilka Mr. Narinder Bhargav and SSp Moga led police teams searched Fazilka and Moga jails but nothing suspicious was recovered.

The spokesman further revealed that in Patiala Zone, SSP Fatehgarh Sahib Mr. Harcharan Singh Bhullar led police team thoroughly searched the Patiala Central jail and recovered two mobile phone out of which one have two sim cards and one gm opium. SSP Patiala Mr. Gurmeet Singh Chauhan led police team searched high security Nabha jail and nothing suspicious was recovered. 15 mobile phones were recovered from modern jail Nabha. Four mobile phones (two without batteries), three blue tooths, one bundle of bidis and 4 sachets of tobacco and Rs 1800/- cash were recovered from Sangrur jail. Four sim cards have been recovered from Barnala sub jail. Besides this, SSP Ropar Mr. Varinder Pal Singh led police team has recovered one sim card, one blade, 8 electrical bulbs, China string and electrical wire from Ropar jail.

The spokesman pointed out that during the operation acute shortage of jail staff, doctors, pharmacists, poor infrastructure of drug de-addiction centres came in to notice. Besides this, need for installation of cctv cameras in large numbers to cover crucial points of jails, regular checking of jail through sniffer dogs was became imperative to keep these jails free from usage of drugs etc.