Prisoners at Taloja receive cut-up newspapers without certain stories, which the authorities don’t want them to read
A censored Sept 8 mid-day edition, with the story ‘Prisoners on civil disobedience strike protesting state’s new no-parole’ edited out. Pic/Sameer Markande
A prisoner from Taloja jail is waiting for a reply from the additional director general (ADG) after writing to him asking why they are supplied with censored newspaper copies daily. Prisoners in Taloja jail get censored newspapers every day, ie, all of them have some or the other news removed. The authorities have been doing this to ensure certain news doesn’t reach the inmates. Some of these copies are in possession of mid-day.
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A Taloja jail inmate said they have been getting censored papers for a month. File pic
Not giving them wrong ideas
The inmate, who has filed an RTI application, seeking a reply from the Maharashtra ADG, did so after observing for a month how they were given newspapers with certain stories missing every day.
When mid-day contacted superintendent of Taloja jail Sadanand Gaikwad, asking him the reason for doing this, he said, “We are following this pattern for certain stories that are related to jail. We cut out those that can give wrong ideas to prisoners.”
“We remove all stories that can have a negative effect on inmates. For example, a story about a prisoner jumping parole, running away from jail or maybe from court while in judicial custody, and about fights in jail, bad behaviour by prisoners, or illegal substances found with them. The only intent behind this is to try and ensure that they don’t commit the same offence. It is also in the interest of keeping peace in jail,” he added.
On the bright side
Gaikwad also said that if there are positive stories about the jail, or if there’s something related to laws, good court orders or implementation of new rules related to jail, then those aren’t censored.
“We focus on giving them positive information,” he said.
mid-day has in its possession 12 censored newspapers got from the jail, in which 16 stories have been cut out. Three of mid-day’s stories among these are ‘Nehru Nagar rapist-murderer sent back to Nashik jail after jumping parole’ printed on August 16, ‘Prisoners on civil disobedience strike protesting state’s new no-parole’ printed on September 8, and another jail story destroying the image of its top cop — ‘Corrupt, abusive, misogynistic SP brought to book – Zero Hiralal Jadhav’ — printed on September 3.
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