Mumbai News: City's Arthur Road Jail Has Most Foreign Inmates
The worrying data reflects the condition of Arthur Road jail, which reportedly lacks health facilities or space, as it holds more people than it should be
Arthur Road jail | Photo: Representative Image
Mumbai: In Maharashtra prisons, at present there are as many as 655 foreign nationals with 544 male inmates, 110 women and one transgender, suggests new data. Mumbai’s already overcrowded Arthur Road jail, also known as Mumbai Central Prison, with 238 inmates, has the highest number of undertrial foreign nationals.
The worrying data reflects the condition of Arthur Road jail, which reportedly lacks health facilities or space, as it holds more people than it should be. Going by the numbers when it comes to foreign nationals, only four convicts and 234 are lodged as undertrial foreign inmates.
113 foreign inmates in Thane Central jail
Arthur Road jail is followed by Thane Central jail with 113 foreign inmates, Navi Mumbai’s Taloja Jail with 92, Byculla Women’s Jail with 67, Yerwada jail with 61, Kalyan District jail with 48 inmates, Nagpur Central jail with just 6 inmates, and Kolhapur Central jail with 15 inmates.
As per the state prison department officials, these 655 foreign national inmates – both undertrials and convicts, mostly belong to countries including England, South Africa, Colombia, Brazil, Pakistan, Kenya, Italy, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Iran, Thailand, Afghanistan, Nepal, Zimbabwe and Nigeria.
The ones from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan are mostly accused of threatening national security or anti-national acts, while the ones from South Africa, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Nigeria, etc are accused of being involved in economic crimes like cheating, forgery, infiltration and drug-related offences.
e-prison system
In July, the state prisons department launched a video call facility for foreign nationals where the convicts and undertrials can make video calls to their family members and lawyers, for 15 minutes in two weeks through the e-prison system.
The jails with the least number of foreign inmates – both undertrials and convicts – are Wardha District Jail, Amravati Central Jail, Nanded District Jail, Nashik Road Central Jail, Ratnagiri Special Jail, Sindhudurg District Jail.
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