Civil rights activists, legal experts flay jail officials

September 19, 2016 12:00 am | Updated November 01, 2016 07:32 pm IST - CHENNAI

Henri Tiphagne

Henri Tiphagne

: Noted civil rights activists and legal experts have raised doubts over the claims of officials that P. Ramkumar, the lone suspect in the Infosys techie Swathi murder case, had committed suicide within the Puzhal jail premises on Sunday.

“The police should have been on extra guard. As a remand prisoner, who had already shown suicidal tendencies, Ramkumar should have been given psychiatric treatment and counselling.

“His security and safety was the responsibility of the prison authorities and eventually the judiciary, since he was in judicial custody,” says V. Suresh, a well-known civil rights activist and national general secretary of People’s Union of Civil Liberties (PUCL).

Raising suspicion over the way in which the remand prisoner is said to have killed himself, he insisted on a high level inquiry into the incident and said that the accountability must be on the entire chain of command and not only on the last person, who was directly responsible for the safety and security of prisoners.

‘Gross negligence’

“The incident is nothing but gross negligence on the part of prison authorities. There needs to be sustained monitoring of the prison premises and these incidents only stress the need for such continued monitoring,” Mr. Suresh added.

Human rights activist and founder of People’s Watch Henri Tiphagne expressed shock over the incident and alleged there was no safety in prisons across the State and further referred to the recent attack on Perarivalan, a life convict in the former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi assassination case in Vellore.

“This is atrocious. The Tamil Nadu government is ultimately responsible for this incident. The ADGP (Prisons) and the Superintendent of Prisons must take responsibility for this incident,” said Mr. Tiphagne.

‘Prisons understaffed’

V. Kannadasan, formerly Special Public Prosecutor in human rights courts, pointed to the insufficient number of warders in prisons across the State.

“Currently, there is one warder for about 200 prisoners and one person cannot monitor the activities of all 200 prisoners all the time.”

Referring to the recommendations made by the Justice I. David Christian Commission that probed the Chennai Prison riots of 1999, Mr. Kannadasan said the Commission recommended that sufficient warders must be posted, but his recommendations had not been implemented so far.

This is evident from the fact that currently, in a shift, there are only about 10 warders for over 2,000 inmates.

Retired judge of the Madras High Court Justice K. Chandru contended that the alleged suicide of the remand prisoner only pointed to the lack of responsibility among the prison authorities.

“When a court gives an order to remand a person, it is the responsibility of the prison authorities to ensure his/her safety. They become the guardian of the inmate and they are accountable to the court over their safety. If such an incident is said to have happened, the prison authorities are to be squarely blamed,” Mr. Chandru observed.

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