Photos of MP jailer with woman inmate go viral; probe ordered

Indore, September 3

Prison authorities in Madhya Pradesh have initiated a probe after photos of a jailer talking to a woman inmate at the Indore jail went viral on social media, an official said on Thursday.

The woman in the photos is an accused in a honey trap case, in which politicians and bureaucrats were allegedly trapped. In September 2019, five women and a man were arrested from Indore and Bhopal for allegedly running the racket.

The photos show jailer KK Kulshreshta sitting on a chair outside the video-conference room in the women’s wing of the district jail, talking to Shweta Vijay Jain, who has been lodged at the jail here after her arrest in the case.

The probe will ascertain who clicked the photos and circulated them as photography in the jail is prohibited, the official said.

It is suspected that a jail staffer clicked the pictures secretly, he added.

The charge sheet filed by police in December 2019 said the accused were allegedly involved in trafficking of women and “trapping persons in higher positions in government by capturing their intimate moments with these women by secret cameras, taking screen shots of chats and other objectionable material to blackmail them”.

Deputy Inspector General (Prisons) Sanjay Pandey told PTI that Indore Central Jail Superintendent Rakesh Kumar Bhangre has been asked to probe in a week how the photos were clicked inside the prison and submit a report.

Pandey said it is the jailer’s duty to interact with inmates to know about arrangements in the jail, adding he found nothing objectionable in the photo content. PTI