Maps, pen drive on sensitive locations found with UP prisoner

Security agencies in Uttar Pradesh have gone into a tizzy after discovering maps of many high security installations, Rashtrapati Bhawan and India Gate in New Delhi from a prison inmate in Moradabad.

"In raids conducted in prisons across the state, police found many contraband things behind the prison walls. The most startling discovery occurred in district jail Moradabad," a police official told IANS.

During the search operations, Sadiq, serving sentence since 2011 for a murder, was found in possession of a pen drive, some maps of para-military installations and other high-security zones, an official informed IANS.

He added that "the discoveries and the data in the pen drive were not normal". Following this, the district administration on Monday dispatched a report to the state government and to the union ministry of home affairs.

"All necessary follow-up action has been initiated. Police officials have also been asked to probe how these materials were sneaked inside the prison," said District Magistrate Deepak Agarawal, terming the finds in the prison as "serious".

"A list of people who visited the jail inmate has lso been asked for. Local Intelligence Units (LIU) and officials from the Intelligence Bureau have reached Moradabad to interrogate Sadiq and to try and ascertain what the possible plan of the man was," an official told IANS.