Jail-break kingpin was away for hearing

Bhanu P Lohumi

Tribune News Service

Shimla, December 11

The jail break by three prisoners, who escaped from Model Central Jail, Kanda (Shimla) in the wee hours on December 6, was a well-crafted plan of another jail inmate, also a Nepali, who himself could not escape.

During interrogation, the three undertrials, Prem Bahadur (22), Pratap Singh (27) and Leela Dhar (22), all Nepalis, reportedly told the police that another Nepali prisoner Kishen Khetri, undergoing sentence in an NDPS case, was the mastermind while one more prisoner was also involved in the conspiracy.

The blade for cutting the iron bars of the barrack was provided by Khetri but how he managed to get the blade would be known only after the interrogation. The blade, which was hidden in an envelope, had been recovered from a toilet.

The plan was fool-proof, executed gradually in the evening prayer time when the movement of blade was not audible due to noise and no one was in the barrack. One of the prisoners stayed back during Aarti and cut the bars.

The inmates used to slowly cut the bars for five to seven minutes every day and later fill soap parts in the cut portion of the rod so that it was not visible to others. It took them 10 days to cut the iron rods.

Khetri and another prisoner were not in the jail on that day as they were taken to Rampur and Kullu for appearing in the court otherwise all five would have escaped, police sources said. The three prisoners were produced in a local court today and remanded to judicial custody till December 14.

The Police Department has decided to install CCTV cameras in all jails after the incident and if this was done earlier, the activities of the prisoners would have been noticed and the three Nepali prisoners would not have dared such a misadventure.

The modus operandi

• The plan was fool-proof, executed gradually in the evening prayer time when the movement of blade was not audible due to noise and no one was in the barrack
• One of the prisoners stayed back during Aarti and cut the bars
• The inmates used to cut the bars for five to seven minutes every day and later fill soap parts in the cut portion of the rod so that it was not visible to others
• It took them 10 days to cut the iron bars.
• Mastermind Khetri and his partner were not in the jail on that day as they were taken to Rampur and Kullu for appearing in the court otherwise all five would have escaped