Plan to recruit more warders for Punjab jails

Days after violence rocked Punjab jails, the state Jails Department has decided to recruit more warders to strengthen the security at prisons.

"We will hire more warders in our jails. A proposal in this regard will soon be put up before Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, said Jails Minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa here Tuesday.

The proposal has come days after a clash at the Ludhiana Central Jail, which left one inmate dead and 35 injured.

In another incident last month, Dera Sacha Sauda follower Mohinder Pal Bittu, who was a key accused in a four-year-old sacrilege case in Bargari, was killed in a Nabha prison by two inmates.

Presently, the Jails Department is facing a shortage of 700 jail warders for 24 jails across the state.

The current strength of jail warders in all prisons was 2,040, officials said here.

The Union government last month had sanctioned the deployment of three companies of the Central Reserve Police Force at three central prisons in Amritsar, Bathinda and Patiala.

The approval was given after the state government made a request in this regard, officials said.

The deployment of CRPF personnel will cost Rs 24 crore per annum to the state exchequer.

The Prisons Department had also sought rubber bullets and tear gas shells to contain violence in the jails, the minister said.

He expressed surprise that the jail staff was still using old weapons and blamed the previous SAD-BJP regime for failing to modernise the weaponry.