Punjab Chief Minister Mr Parkash Singh Badal today took a series of decision to beef up the security of Pakistani prisoners lodged in the different jails across the state.Presiding over a high-level meeting of jails department here at his official residence today, in the backdrop of the unfortunate attack on a Pakistani prisoner in Jammu, the Chief Minister directed the officers that foolproof arrangements should be made for the security of 50 Pakistani prisoners lodged in Punjab’s jails. He said that these jails must be well secured and special measures should be taken to ensure the safety of Pakistani nationals. Mr Badal directed the officers to keep a strict vigil in the jails where Pakistani prisoners have been lodged.
On the issue of supply of drugs inside the jails, which has led to death of some prisoners, the Chief Minister while expressing serious concern over it asked the concerned departments to take immediate corrective actions in this regard. He asked the officers to ensure immediate assessment of the medical condition of a person upon his arrest adding that any person, particularly, a drug addict found to be suffering from a serious medical ailment and warranting urgent medical care should be admitted to hospital for stabilization before being lodged in prison. Mr Badal also asked the Jail department to boost up the capacity of the central jails having functional drug de-addiction centres, which were being used to treat addicted inmates, by recruiting more staff and upgradation of services like
psychiatric care and counselling services.
In order to upgrade the security in jails for checking the supply of drugs in them, the Chief Minister also directed the Department to bring a proposal for installingmodern equipment like X-ray machines and scanners besides using sniffer dogs to monitor the visitors entering the jail premises. Likewise Mr Badal also directed the department to seek security personnel from other states/central para-military forces on a reciprocal basis for the outer ring of the jail premises so as to reduce inter-mingling and fraternizing of security personnel with convicts. In order to step up thesecurity in the inner ring, he directed that 700 trained ex-servicemen would be deployed by Punjab Ex-servicemen Corporation (PESCO) at an estimated cost of Rs. 8 crore per year.
Prominent amongst those present in the meeting included Jails Minister, Mr Sarwan Singh Phillaur, Principal Secretary (Home) Mr DS Bains, Principal Secretary (Health) Mrs Vini Mahajan, Principal Secretary (Defence Services Welfare)-cum-Chairman PESCO, Mr Vishwajit Khanna, Secretary (Home), Mrs Raji Shrivastava, ADGP(PAP) Mr GS Sahota, ADGP (Prisons) Mr RP Meena and IG (Prisons) Mr Jagjit Singh.