20 inmates booked in connection with Ludhiana jail clash

Twenty inmates of the Ludhiana Central Jail were booked on Friday, a day after a clash between two groups of gangsters on the prison premises, police said.

A case under various sections of the Indian Penal Code, including 307 ( attempt to murder ) was registered against 20 inmates of the jail involved in Thursday's violence, Ludhiana Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Ashwani Kapoor said.

All the inmates who were booked have been identified by the jail authorities, the DCP said.

Meanwhile, Deputy Commissioner Pradeep Aggarwal, who is also Ludhiana district magistrate, has started an inquiry into violence at the jail.

Punjab Jails minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, who visited the central jail to take stock of the situation, faced protests from the relatives and friends of those injured in the clash.

They raised slogans against the state government and the minister.

Randhawa told reporters that in order to avoid recurrence of such incidents in jails, 'Prison Action Force' would be set up in the state prisons on the lines of the Rapid Action Force.

Three companies of the central forces have been allotted to Punjab recently for the purpose, he added.

These would be deployed at Bathinda, Ludhiana and Amritsar, the minister said.

The mother of undertrial Avtar Baba, who fell to the bullets of police on Thursday, said they would not let the post-mortem be done till a case of murder is registered against the persons responsible for the killing of her son.

She claimed that her son was innocent.

An inmate of the Ludhiana Central Jail was killed and 35 were injured when a clash broke between two groups of gangsters Thursday, prompting police to open fire to bring the situation under control. A senior police officer was among those injured in the incident. The trouble started soon after a jail inmate, undergoing a trial in a drug case, died at a Patiala hospital Thursday.