Murders in jail should be treated as custodial deaths: PUCL

: The People's Union for Civil Liberties has demanded that the murder of two convicts inside the district prison here on November 2 be treated as 'custodial deaths'.

"The jail superintendent, jailer and staff should be booked in the case as they were custodians of the accused," PUCL President Kabir Ullal told reporters at a press meet here yesterday.

He said it was difficult to believe that weapons could be brought inside the prison without the knowledge of the jail staff. He dismissed the police argument that the weapons might have been tossed up from outside the prison. The incident was not a group clash as claimed by the police, and the murders were 'communally motivated,' he said.
 

Kabir said that as per information received by PUCL, an undertrial had told police during questioning that he had alerted the jail staff that weapons had been brought inside three days before the crime, but no action was taken.

He demanded that the case be referred to the National Human Rights Commission considering the murders of Madoor Isubu and his associate Ganesh Shetty inside the jail as custodial deaths.

PUCL's legal advisor Dinesh Hegde Ulepady, who was also present, said there was no sufficient staff in Mangaluru prison and undertrials were enjoying all sorts of facilities. Though many of them were found to have been using mobile phones, no mobile jammer had been installed inside the jail, he said.