"It is a prison within a prison," said Murali Karnam, an assistant professor with the TISS' Nodal Centre of Excellence for Human Rights Education, School of Law Rights and Constitutional Governance, while describing a jail's female barracks. The entire prison is designed as per the requirements of a male prisoner, while all female prisoners are lodged in a single barrack devoid of the most basic facilities.
Professor Karnam has been working on prison issues for the past eight years in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Chattisgarh and Odisha. "Male prisoners are provided at least 6 to 7 barracks where they can roam around, meet other inmates. However, the condition of women is very bad. They are not allowed access to hospitals, library, kitchen etc. under the pretext of security risks," he told dna.
"When I visited the Kalyan prison, I saw that two HIV positive women were lodged in an isolated prison, which is a clear cut violation of human rights. Strange thing is that even judicial officials do not know about the rules," he added.
When asked about the medical help extended to prisoners, the professor said, "When a person is lodged behind bars, he/she becomes totally handicapped and is dependent on the state for help. However there are instances when a person suffers with minor ailments like head ache, stomach ache, which are always ignored. When the state lodges a person behind bars, the entire responsibility of that person is on the state."
"A study on deaths behind bars reveals that on an average almost 1,000 prisoners die in custody every year, and 90 per cent of them are undertrials. Statistics also revealed that most undertrial punishment are converted into death penalty. Also, the death of a prisoner is never considered a custodial death, rather shown as a case of natural death. Rather, even if a prisoner dies of natural death, since he/she died in the custody of the jail, the death must be shown as a custodial death."
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