Special court soon for gangsters in Patiala jail

Aman Sood

Tribune News Service

Patiala, January 14

The state government has set the ball rolling for setting up a special designated court inside the Central Jail here. Tenders have been floated for the court, where cases of hardcore criminals would be heard, doing away with the exercise of taking them to various district courts.

A senior official of the Jail Department said the government was contemplating shifting cases under the contentious Punjab Control of Organised Crime Act (PCOCA), which is in the pipeline, to this court. “Even the criminals booked for robbery, attempt to murder and under the NDPS Act will be shifted to this jail and heard inside the jail court,” he added.

The government has set up the court of an Additional Sessions Judge and some judicial magistrates to hear all such cases. Sources in the police top brass told The Tribune that feedback regarding the proposal had been taken from range DIGs and district-level officers, many of whom had sent reports welcoming the decision.

Tenders were recently floated for the construction of a new building for the court complex. The Punjab Police Housing Corporation has been allotted work. A separate building will be completed within a few months. “Such courts at the level of the Additional Sessions Judge, deputed by the District and Sessions Judge, will hear the cases. Thus, gangsters would no longer have to be taken to the court for every hearing,” sources said.

Initially, the government decided to have a separate platoon of the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), which handles security at major airports and other vital instalments, to be deputed round the clock, with the jail officials manning internal security. “However, the idea was dropped as the sanction from the Centre is a cumbersome process,” a top official said.

A senior IPS officer said these gangsters usually got in touch with their accomplices whenever they were taken out for hearings, and consequently planned crimes while being lodged in jail. “They used to threaten jail and police officials also as they knew that they could pass on important messages during their visits to the court,” he said, adding that the police would save on resources used for transporting the criminals.

Additional DGP (Jails) IPS Sahota told The Tribune that the process to have a designated court would be completed soon. “It will help our staff handle the gangsters better. The idea is to ensure that the gangsters and other anti-social elements are kept under check,” he said.

Unsafe transit

• April 2016: A gang led by Vicky Gounder, said to be mastermind of the Nabha jailbreak, gunned down three rival gangsters in Gurdaspur when the latter were being taken back to jail after a court hearing
• January 2015: Gangster Sukha Kahlwan was shot dead in the presence of six cops by a rival gang near Goraya. He was being taken to the Nabha jail after a court hearing in Jalandhar