Techies get themselves locked up in Telangana museum jail

'Feel the Jail' idea has been floating in since the 200-year-old Sangareddy District Central Jail got converted into a museum

Spending a night in a cell is a novel idea for adventure. Four techies, a truck driver, and three other persons have paid Rs 500 each for the last 20 days to get lodged in a cell in of the 200-year-old Sangareddy District Central Jail in Medak, reports The Indian Express. 

Deputy SP of District Central Jail M Lakshmi Narasimha had this idea of 'Feel the Jail' ever since the jail in Telangana converted into a museum after a new prison complex was constructed nearby.

The cell in which the tourists are locked up is a single cell in the women’s barracks in the museum jail, which has been prepared for the tourists. T Srikant, a driver, checked in last week, officials said.

Two weeks ago, Nitish Reddy Parvatham, a techie from Hyderabad, one of his software engineer friends working in Bengaluru convinced him and another engineer in Hyderabad to get the ‘inmate’ experience. The three engineers are the batchmates from IIT-Bombay.

They reached the jail on Saturday, paid the fee and completed the formality. “It was quite interesting, the jail staff took away our phones, wallets and everything else we had on us. We were given prison uniforms. We cleaned the cell and settled down,” said Nitish.

The breakfast was "forgettable rice and rasam", said Nitish. After that they returned to their cell. “Taken out for lunch again, we interacted with a few prisoners from the main jail… We were given dinner at 6 pm and then locked up again,” Nitish said. “As they have rule that two prisoners cannot be in the same cell, a guard gave us company. We chatted into the night before I went off to sleep.”

“But just before midnight he suddenly became distraught and wanted to leave. So we ‘released’ him,’’ Deputy SP Narasimha said.