MP jailbreak: Morena prison jailer, 5 others suspended

Additional Director General (Jails) G R Meena said the incident appeared to have taken place due to the carelessness of suspended officials.

Morena (MP), Feb 14: The Madhya Pradesh government has suspended Morena prison jailor Vijay Maurya and five other officials and employees a day after two under trial prisoners escaped from the district facility.

A SIT has also been constituted to inquire into the incident, a top police official said on Tuesday. Police have also declared a reward of Rs 10,000 on each on two escaped prisoners.

"Prima facie, it appears to be carelessness on the part of Jailor Vijay Maurya, Deputy jailor Basudev Manjhi, chief warder Dataram and three warders Ramavtar, Brijendra Parmar and Phool Singh, who were on duty and therefore, they are placed under suspension," Additional Director General (Jails) G R Meena said after inspecting the jail premises in Morena on Tuesday.

Ujjain prison jailor Sunil Sharma would be new jailer of Morena jail, he said.

On Monday morning, two undertrial prisoners--Omprakash Jat, who is awaiting trial in a murder case and Anil Rathore, an accused in a rape case, dug a hole into a closed cemented entry leading to a staircase to slip out from the district jail .

Meena informed that a magisterial enquiry was also ordered by district magistrate Vinod Sharma into the incident.

"DM has ordered magisterial inquiry into the escape. This inquiry would be conducted by ADM Vivek Singh," he added.

ADG (Jails) also informed that a SIT headed by Gwalior prison jailor was also constituted to investigate into the jail break. Meena said the work of installing CCTV cameras would also be started soon.

"The work of installing the CCTV cameras in this jail would be taken up on priority now. An amount of Rs 10 lakh was also sanctioned for maintenance and repairing the jail facilities," he added.

On the other hand, district police have announced a reward of Rs 10,000 of each of two escaped prisoners. Last year, eight SIMI men awaiting trial had escaped from highly-fortified Bhopal Central Jail on Diwali night after killing a warder. They were subsequently killed in an alleged encounter with police on the same day. Meena claimed that security of the state jails have been ramped up across the state after the Bhopal jailbreak.

PTI