In a bid to step up the security apparatus of the prisons across the state, the state government has given administrative approval for the purchase of security equipment worth Rs 5.23 crores. Since the installation of CCTVs in the entire prison premises would still take some time, the government has decided to provide communication devices to the prison staff so that they can ensure nothing untoward takes place in the prison premises and timely assistance can be sought if they come across any incident, a government official said. The prison department would be purchasing 2298 sets of handheld radios or walkie talkies and mobile radios.
Speaking about the procurement, a state government official said, "The inside premises of prisons in the state are spread across in large area and for its monitoring, required CCTV system set up would still take some time. "Hence, for the internal security purposes it is important for all the prison officials and staff to stay in connected with each other. In order to establish communication between the prison department requires walkie-talkie sets and once the walkie-talkies are made available, the prison officials would not only be able to stay connected with each other, but there would also be effective monitoring and control on the inmates, avoid any untoward incident and maintain security effectively inside the prisons."
The official stated that additional director general of police, prisons, had given a proposal to the government for the purchase of walkie-talkie sets. "The said proposal of the prisons department was under consideration by the government and now we have given administrative approval for the purchase of 2298 handheld radios totally costing Rs 4.93 crores and 81 mobile radios totally costing Rs 30 lakh. There have been incidents in the past wherein inmates have escaped or have tried to escape and the purchase of communication devices would strengthen the monitoring by the jail officials during patrolling within prison premises," the official said.
In July 2020, two under-trials - Shyam Chavan (23), a resident of Bhiwandi in Thane, and Avinash Gaikwad (21), hailing from the Aurangabad district, who were facing charges of theft and robbery, escaped from Adharwadi Jail in Kalyan in the wee hours of Monday by scaling three storey administrative building of the jail and escaped from the reception block of the jail.
Similarly, in July 2017, two 20-year-old undertrials Davind Murugesan Devendran and Manikandan Selvaraj Nadar, who were arrested on charges ranging from robbery, dacoity and attempted murder had escaped from Adharwadi jail by jumping over the prison walls with the help of a CCTV camera cable. The accused, after telling the authorities that they were going to answer nature’s call, had cut the cable and proceeded to use it to scale a wall.
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