Bhopal: Prison staffers haven’t done target practice for years

Bhopal: Prison staffers haven’t done target practice for years

FPJ BureauUpdated: Thursday, May 30, 2019, 10:28 AM IST
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BHOPAL: The jail department is facing an acute shortage of firearms and ammunition and that is adversely impacting security in 122 jails of the state, housing around 38,000 prisoners. The total number of prison staff is 6,600.

According to jail manual, when on duty, all warders, chief warder and jailor should have guns. The manual also says that they have to do target practice at regular intervals. But for want of ammunition, it has been stopped, albeit unofficially.

The security personnel are using 410 musket rifles, SLRs and .455 and .38 calibre revolvers. These weapons are outdated and are not suited for close combat situations.

The department doesn’t have armourers and their services are outsourced from the police department.

 The rate of payment to the armourers has remained unchanged since the 1960s. Head constable (armourer)  gets Rs 5 to maintain 50 guns and constables (assistant armourers) get Rs 3 for the same work. Some of the guns have not been cleaned for decades. One can be reasonably certain that the weapons won’t fire when the need arises.

According to reports, in Sagar Central Jail,  prisoners dust weapons. The prisoners are not even supposed to go near the armoury but due to shortage of staff, the authorities have little options.

Recently the jail department has asked all jails to provide details of the weapons under their possession as also their condition.

Presently around 2000 weapons are required but the actual number of weapons is less than half of it.  Every year, the security men are supposed to fire 60 rounds from pistols and 50 from rifles to as target practice. But this is not done.

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