Soon, courtrooms on premises of 7 high-security jails

Anirudh Gupta

Ferozepur, July 10

The state government has decided to set up courtrooms in seven high-security jails to restrict the movement of dangerous criminals, who have to be taken for legal hearings, entailing huge risk.

This was stated by Jails Minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, who added that such courts would function once a week to begin with.

He said the court rooms were being set up in Patiala, Kapurthala, Amritsar, Bathinda, Faridkot, Sangrur and Nabha jails.

The minister further said to bolster security in the jails, the department had rolled out the process to purchase adequate equipment such as tear gas shells and rubber bullets, besides self-loading rifles, on which Rs 5 crore would be spent.

Randhawa said there was a shortage of 1,500 employees in the jails out of which 750 had been recruited. The approval for recruitment of 450 employees had also been received by the government.

“Besides, three divisions of the paramilitary forces will soon be deployed for the protection of prisoners and three more units will be posted in due course of time,” he added.

Randhawa said CCTV cameras and drone cameras would be used for 24x7 surveillance in jails. Portable jammer systems would be installed in prisons, which would completely restrict mobile signals inside the jail, he added.

To set up PCOs outside each barrack in the jails, a contract with BSNL was being signed, following which each prisoner and undertrial would be able to speak on any two numbers for eight minutes in a day, he said.