Swati Sathe, senior superintendent of Arthur Road Jail, speaks to DNA in an exclusive interview.
Swati Sathe, senior superintendent of Arthur Road Jail, speaks to DNA in an exclusive interview.
To avoid stop gangsters from running their activities from the Arthur Road prison, Swati Sathe, the senior jail superintendent has written to Inspector General (Prison) Shrikant Savarkar to reinstall mobile jammers on the jail premise.
Earlier, DK Rao, the gangster attached with the Chhota Rajan gang, was arrested for allegedly running his extortion racket through his mobile from the high security cell of the jail. Sathe, who took charge of the prison on May 29, confiscated about 10 mobile handsets.
In an exclusive interview to DNA on Friday, Sathe said the mobile jammers installed on the jail's premises in 2005 did not function. "There is a strong possibility that extortion activities were carried out with cellphones. The gangsters were running their activities from the jail," said Sathe. She said efforts were on to dig out the SIM cards which could help them track down such activities.
Sathe said the situation in the prison was pathetic. "There was a complete collapse in the system. The clean-up will take at least a month," she said. A senior official from the prison said a separate batch of jail staff was specially brought in from Pune to carry out the "flushing out drive".
"There is no way that these violations could have been carried out without the connivance of jail officials. We wanted to stop the irregularities," said a jail official. Sathe said the next mission would be to isolate young offenders (aged between 18 and 21) from the other criminals. "This age group is the most vulnerable. The hardcore criminals try to influence them and take them into their gang. I want to stop this," Sathe said.
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