LUCKNOW: Some inmates of Raebareli jail in Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday alleged getting death threats from senior jail officials and the Special Task Force (STF) officers.
The Additional Director General (Prisons) of Uttar Pradesh Police, however, rebuffed the charges.
The revelation comes a day after six jail officials, including a senior jail superintendent were suspended for failing to check the clandestine entry of liquor and firearms inside the prison.
In a video clip that has gone viral on social media, a prisoner Anshu Dixit claimed that he along with fellow inmates Sohrab Khan and D S Singh were being threatened by "jail officials and senior STF personnel".
Naming all the officers, Dixit said if he or his fellow inmates were killed, an FIR must be registered against them.
In a separate video, Dixit and his fellow inmates allegedly showed the poor quality of food being offered inside the jail and further claimed that a "parallel canteen" was being run inside the prison premises.
"In the other canteen, besides sweets and aloo paratha, cigarettes and other things are available. This facility is availed by a large number of inmates and lakhs of rupees are earned everyday. The money is shared from bottom to the top," the prisoners alleged.
Reacting to the video, ADG (Prisons) Chandra Prakash told PTI, "The videos are old and were shot as the inmates were facing strict action by the prison staff."
"The allegations (of death threat) are vague. Anyone can make such an allegation. The state government has already taken strict action in the matter," he added.
On Monday, a video of the Raebareli jail showing inmates having drinks inside the barrack went viral on social media, prompting the state government to suspend six officials, including a senior jail superintendent Pramod Kumar Shukla and three jail warders.
The clip also showed one of the inmates ordering liquor on a mobile phone, and another demanding extortion.
After the footage was aired by local TV news channels, the government shifted the four inmates seen in the video to other jails and an FIR was lodged against them.
However, this is not the first time that jail inmates have aired apprehensions about their safety.
In the wake of imprisoned mafia don Munna Bajrangi being shot dead by his rival inside the Baghpat jail in July, the incident had triggered a sense of insecurity among a dozen gangsters lodged in various jails across UP.
Notorious gangsters Atiq Ahmed, Mukim alias 'Kala', Udaibhan Singh alias 'Doctor', Titu alias Kiranpal, Rocky alias 'Kaki', Alam Singh and others had alleged threat to their life and urged to be placed in jails located in their "areas of influence".
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), after coming to power in UP in March last year, had shifted over 100 criminals from one jail to another to make their crime machinery ineffective.
Despite the dons being lodged in jails, their gangs continued to indulge in crimes like murder, kidnapping, dacoity and extortion, a senior police officer said.
A muscleman's call from jail is enough to terrorise businessmen, contractors and even government officers. Those who refuse to follow their diktats are threatened, attacked or killed, he added.
Prisons in the state are already plagued by problems such as over-crowding, staff shortage and porous security, with frequent reports of liquor, weapons and mobile phones getting sneaked inside.
In many jails, CCTV cameras, metal detectors and manual scanners do not function properly, a committee set up to probe the state of affairs in UP prisons had noted.
The incidents have come to light at a time when the jail administration is in the process of upgrading prisons with multi-level security system and installation of machines to check clandestine entry of illegal weapons - both firearms and sharp edged weapons to end the bloody battles in jails and inmates being killed while being taken to court for hearings.
