No mobile jammers in Bhondsi prison as deadline passes

GURGAON: Bhondsi prison will have to wait longer for the mobile jammers in the jail premises. The jammers were to be installed by the end of March 2016, however, the department is yet to finalise which jammers will be installed in the prison.
The decision to install jammers in the 40 acres area of Bhondsi jail was made in November last year after mobile phones and sim cards were recovered in the jail premises.DG (prisons) Parminder Rai had announced that the jammers will be installed by end of March to control mobile menace in Bhondsi jail. Haryana state prison department had planned to install around 14 jammers which were said to be approved by Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). Rai had announced that jammers were to be connected to all telecom service providers in the country to ensure that every mobile connection could be traced. A Hyderabad based company was to supply the jammers at the cost of six crore rupees. If successful in Gurgaon, the project was to be replicated in other state prisons too.
Smuggling of mobile phones and sim cards have been a headache for the jail authorities for a year now. For around 2,100 prisoners in Bhondsi jail, there are only 225 jail officials. Therefore it becomes difficult to monitor the possessions of the inmates and when something is sneaked inside the jail. As a result, around 96 mobile phones were recovered from Bhondsi jail in 2015, while, 35 mobile phones have been recovered till March 8 this year. A total of 71 sim cards were recovered in the jail premises last year, while 38 sim cards have been recovered in 2016. Despite strict checking by the jail authorities and regular raids by Gurgaon police, the regular recoveries shows that the mobile phones are still being smuggled into the jail.
Most of these items were found in the common areas like washrooms, gaps in the walls, gardens etc. Therefore, it makes it difficult for the checking party to identify the owners.
In July 2015, a shootout at MG Road aimed at gangster Rakesh Hayatpur instead killed three other innocent men. This shootout was conspired in the jail by a criminal named Sandeep alias Dabbu.
The presence of the jammers in the jail could have put a stop to this but little has been done since the announcement despite conducting a survey in the prison for the jammers. Sources reveal that despite the deadline having been lapsed, the no decision has been made even whether these will be universal jammers or whether the various telecom companies will set up individual jammers, reveal sources.
“The survey was conducted a few months ago but we are yet to receive the details of the jammers. We expect the project to be completed soon and hopefully the delay should not be more than a month long,” said Ramesh Kumar, deputy superintendent at Bhondsi prison.