New Delhi: The intelligence agencies are keeping a close eye on the Tihar jail, amid allegations that many of the criminal activities around entire North India are planned from the prison. Investigation had traced the links of high profile murders, kidnapping from this jail. With a total capacity of around 10,000 inmates, Tihar Jail in Delhi is one of the largest jails in the world.
Two killings in Rajasthan, three murders in Bihar and several killings in Uttar Pradesh in the recent months had been planned and ordered from the Tihar jail as per the FIRs filed in these cases which named gangsters lodged in the prison as accused. An IB official said: “It is quite clear that all the facilities are available inside the prison; hence criminals are able to plan and execute their strategy from within it. Many terrorists are also lodged inside it; therefore the security agencies became quite active.”
Since long, the conduct of Tihar Jail staff has been under the scanner with even the SC directing the Delhi Police Commissioner to personally inquire and submit the report to the apex court. It went on to say that the conduct of the officials is absolutely shameless as they are helping the criminal elements in every possible way inside the jail. These strong observations came in the ex-Unitech promoter Sanjay Chandra and Ajay Chandra case in which the ED told the SC that the accused had taken the entire custodial process to ransom and made it meaningless inside the Tihar prison as they are able to freely communicate, dispose of properties and instruct people from inside the jail in connivance with the prison staffs and officials. A bench of Justice M.R. Shah and D.Y. Chandrachud directed the police to shift them from Tihar jail to Mumbai’s Arthur Road Jail and Taloja Central Jail. The bench observed, “Tihar jail officials have actively connived with the accused to flout the orders of this court. All we have to say is that the Tihar Jail superintendent and his staff are shameless. Can you imagine it is happening in the capital city? We have lost all faith in the Tihar jail authorities. They are defeating our orders by sitting in the capital city. We will certainly take them to task, but we will first shift the accused from this jail.”