24 ‘tunnel diggers’ moved to single barracks

Sabarmati Central Jail Superintendent R S Bhagora told The Indian Express, “After the tunnel case, we thought of withdrawing them from these courses and various activities they used to be involved in as a matter of internal discipline. They had misused the gardening and library activities and also their open meetings when taken to court or brought to barracks. Big heads among them have been separated from the rest and none are allowed to move out of the barracks except morning calls.”

Earlier, all the blast accused were put up in Chhota Chakkar, which are shared barracks. Now, the alleged “tunnel diggers” have been shifted to a high-security area and put in single barracks with attached washrooms; isolated and cut off from the rest of the accused. They are also under round-the-clock surveillance.

The blast accused had enrolled for long-distance courses from IGNOU, Annamalai University and Baba Saheb Ambedkar University. Former Student Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) member Nagori was enrolled in courses on human rights, public administration and value education. He was doing an MSc in value education and spirituality course last November where he had topped, outshining suspended IPS officer D G Vanzara, an accused in the fake encounter case and enrolled in the same course. Nagori, who spent six years in Sabarmati Central Jail in the Ahmedabad, was shifted to Delhi recently for the trial in other blast cases.

The prison authorities believe Nagori was the motivator for other prisoners to study rare subjects. Nagori, a journalism student from the Vikram University in Madhya Pradesh, is a student of Masters in Public Administration. Qayamuddin Kapadia of Vadodara was doing BA and Certificate in Arabic Language. He  is charged of raising IM’s Gujarat cadre under Nagori’s mentorship.

There were several blast accused who were not even graduates or hadn’t gone to high school who appeared for the Bachelors Preparatory Programme and did graduations during their undertrial period. Javed Ahmed (chargesheeted in tunnel case), who was not even Class 12 pass, first finished his BPP inside the jail and and attained his Bachelors of Commerce. However, he had later enrolled for Certificate in Entrepreneurship, which he couldn’t finish. Bhagora added, “Those who were enrolled earlier and had to only take exams, were allowed to sit for it. The exams got over recently. However, no more courses, whether graduation or certificates, would be allowed to blast accused now. Every year, they have to fill forms for renewal of ongoing courses, which was discontinued this year. A few of them had to withdraw it before completion because as such they were taking too many extensions”.

The blast accused have only one liberty to use and that is of going to the library. However, they are sent only in the section of religious books under the watch of the sepoys.