Chandigarh, March 17
In view of the threat of coronavirus outbreak in Punjab jails, the Prisons Department has started an exercise to decongest the prisons.
The department has lifted the ban on regular parole to drugs smugglers and peddlers convicted under the NDPS Act. They are not hardcore smugglers, but those caught with small quantity (a few grams) of drugs. Nearly 3,000 such convicts have been identified, said Jails Minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, while confirming the development.
The department is also planning to allow bail to petty criminals, including snatchers. “We are taking legal advice to process nearly 2,800 cases of petty criminals for releasing them on bail or parole to further decongest the jails and contain the threat of coronavirus spread,” said Randhawa.
“To check the activities of released prisoners, we will make them mark attendance in police stations in their respective areas twice a day,” he said.
There are 19 jails, including nine Central, in the state. At present, these house nearly 25,000 inmates against the capacity of 23,500. A convict can get a parole up to 16 weeks in a year depending on his conduct. The state government had extended the parole duration from 12 to 16 weeks to encourage good conduct for inmates other than convicts under the NDPS Act and heinous crimes, including rape and murder.
As per directions to all jail heads, they can process the cases of parole to identified convicts subjected to fulfillment of the requisite conditions under the Jail Manual. The inmate should also have clearance from the respective police and district administration. He should not be a threat to law and order.
Jails are considered hotspots for the spread of coronavirus. World over jails are being sanitised and inmates are being screened. Punjab only has one positive case of the virus so far and that too outside the jails. Officials said inmates with minor symptoms of flu are being isolated, but to contain the threat of Covid spread, depopulating the prisons would act as a preventive measure.
Inmate quarantined
Ludhiana: A suspected case of Covid was reported from Ludhiana jail. The patient, in his mid-thirties, has been kept at an isolated ward in Civil Hospital here. Having returned from the US, he was wanted by the Nawanshahr police in a criminal case. He was arrested from Delhi airport in February.