Another Undertrial Dies In Central Jail Patiala

An undertrial lodged at the Central Jail, Patiala, today lost his live under puzzling conditions. He was confronting trial beneath the NDPS Act. Whilst the sufferer’s family members alleged criminal action, the prison functionaries denied commenting on the matter.

Police stated that said the 27-year-old convict, Inderpal Singh, was found lying lifeless on Thursday. He was taken to the local hospital where he was announced brought dead. The jail authorities rejected any foul play. A board of physicians carried out a postmortem examination of the body and forwarded the internal organs for a chemical test.

The sources added the chance of a cheating in the prisoner’s demise could not be winnowed out. Though there was no outer injury on Inderpal Singh’s body, the precise reason of death could be known from the post-mortem examination report, they said.

All attempts to get in touch with jail officials proved useless. Jails Minister Sarwan Singh Phillaur did not react in spite of frequent calls on his mobile phone.

The event comes within days after nervousness prevailed in Faridkot prison over the death of a prisoner during the last April’s week. In actual fact, three prisoners had died within a week’s period at the (Faridkot) jail, following which the rest of the prisoners had taken to violence, which left seven jail personnel injured.

Consequently, the police officials had booked 13 prisoners for fire-starting and rioting on the grievance from Jail Superintendent JP Singh.

A physician had even suggested at the use of some lethal drugs by the deceased as they were shifted to the hospital in a highly critical condition. The police had conducted a search operation under the supervision of an SP-rank officer and jail staff. The officials searched all barracks in the jail and seized several banned drugs and used needles.

Regular use of drugs and alcoholic beverages came to light after a few senior physicians and investigation officers had visited the prison. Some prisoners said they had easy access to drugs, but at a very high price.

Visiting physicians stated that there might be high occurrence of illnesses such as Hepatitis-C and HIV among the jail inmates as the use of a single syringe to induce drugs was frequent amongst them. Physicians felt the unexpected increase in number of deaths in the jail might be due to the use of adulterated drugs.

The thighs and lower limbs of one of the deceased were highly punctured because of nonstop intra-muscular utilization of syringe to take drugs, said the physicians.