141 women prisoners of 5 jails shifted to Karnal

Tribune News Service

Yamunanagar, June 30

As many as 141 women prisoners, including convicts and undertrials, have been shifted to district jail, Karnal, from five district jails of Haryana to set up quarantine wards in the female wards of these jails for new prisoners with an aim to stop the spread of Covid among old prisoners.

According to information, the women prisoners were sent to Karnal jail from district jails of Sonepat, Panipat, Kurukshetra, Kaithal and Yamunanagar from June 23 to June 27.

“As many as 43 women prisoners were sent to our jail from Sonepat jail. Similarly, 31 women prisoners each from Panipat and Kurukshetra districts, 18 prisoners each from Kaithal and Yamunanagar districts were sent here,” said Amit Kumar Bhadu, Superintendent, District Jail, Karnal.

He said that they now had 169 women prisoners including 28 women prisoners of Karnal jail.

The decision of shifting women prisoners from five districts to district jail, Karnal; women prisoners of district jails Bhiwani and Sirsa to Central Jail, Hisar-2; and women prisoners of district jail Narnaul to district jail, Jhajjar, was taken at a meeting of Haryana State Legal Services Authority (HALSA), Panchkula.

The meeting of HALSA was held under the chairmanship of Executive Chairman of the authority, Justice Rajiv Sharma, Judge, Punjab and Haryana High Court, through video conferencing on June 15.

The meeting was attended by Vijai Vardhan, Additional Chief Secretary, Home Department, Haryana; K Selvaraj, Director General of Prisons, Haryana, and Pramod Goyal, Member Secretary, HALSA.

Ratan Singh, Superintendent, district jail, Yamunanagar, said that a number of difficulties were being faced by the jail authorities due to limited space and insufficient infrastructure for effective quarantine/isolation of new prisoners coming to the jails.

“Therefore, Haryana State Legal Services Authority directed the jail authorities to shift women prisoners from different jails of Haryana to three jails, Karnal, Central Jail Hisar-2 and Jhajjar, so that the female wards of these jails can be used as quarantine/isolation wards,” said Ratan Singh.