3 top Sangrur jail officers transferred, one suspended

Parvesh Sharma

Tribune News Service

Sangrur, October 16

Four days after a video of the Sangrur jail inmates alleging harassment and corruption by jail officers went viral, the Punjab ADGP, Jails, on Tuesday transferred three top officers of the jail, suspended one and terminated the services of a Punjab Ex-servicemen Corporation (PESCO) guard for dereliction of duty. The local police are conducting investigation into corruption charges.

Sources informed that after receiving a report from AIG, Jails, Manjit Singh Kalra, who visited the Sangrur jail three days ago, ADGP, Jails, IPS Sahota, on Tuesday transferred Sangrur Jail Superintendent Iqbal Singh Brar to Nabha Jail and Nabha Jail Superintendent Manjit Singh Tiwana to the Sangrur jail. Apart from it, Sangrur Deputy Jail Superintendent Amrik Singh has been transferred to the Chandigarh office of the department, Assistant Jail Superintendent Jagtar Singh has been transferred to Ferozepur, while Jail Warden Jaswinder Singh has been placed under suspension and services of another PESCO guard has been terminated immediately.

“All have faced action for dereliction of duty. Investigations into corruption allegations, levelled by jail inmates, have been going on. If found correct, the officers will face action for that,” ADGP Sahota said.

On the night of October 12, a video went viral on social media in which seven jail inmates accused officers of the Sangrur jail of demanding money from them to bring them out of special cell. Inmates had also alleged in the video that earlier also they paid money to the jail staff after the recovery of mobiles from them. The Sangrur police had recovered two mobiles from inmates on October 13 after Sangrur SSP Dr Sandeep Garg directed the SP (Headquarter) for conducting a thorough investigation.