Soon, prison inmates to be reshuffled across state

Top jail authorities in the state have decided to carry out a massive reshuffle of inmates of various jails across Maharashtra following the attack on gangster Abu Salem in the Taloja Jail on Thursday. The inmates will be shifted to other barracks, depending on the faction gangs they are affiliated to, to prevent such attacks in the future.

Speaking to dna, Inspector General of Prisons and Additional Director General of Police Meeran Chadha Borwankar said, “After the incident, we have decided to take a review of security at the jails. We will decide where to shift the inmates after that.”

A senior officer of state jail department told dna on condition of anonymity, “Following this incident, we have drawn up a list of inmates across other prisons in the state. We have decided to shift inmates who were housed with members of rival gangs or factions to other barracks to ensure that such an incident is not repeated.”

Another senior officer, who did not want to divulge his identity, told dna, “After the shocking murder of terror accused Qateel Siddiqui at Yerawada jail in Pune on June 8 last year, we had to reshuffle inmates in jails across the state. We had also issued instructions to the jailors that they should follow basic rules like ensuring members of rival factions should not be kept in the same barracks in order to avoid a confrontation.”

The officer added that a major mistake was done by the Yerawada jail authorities last year where two suspected Indian Mujahideen (IM) members Qateel Siddiqui and Himayat Baig were kept together in the same barrack. “Baig was kept alone while Qateel was kept in a cell adjacent to that of Alok Bhalerao who killed Qateel with the help of another inmate Sharad Mohol,” he said.
Talking about attack on Salem on Thursday, the officer said, “In this particular incident, had they ensured that faction gang members were kept away from Salem, the incident would not have occurred. However, Jagtap easily went to Salem’s barrack and fired two rounds.”