The jail, housing 1,500 prisoners
but with a capacity of only 500, almost turned into a war zone for
most part of the day as angry protesters, who first went on a hunger
strike demanding better amenities for themselves, went out of
control after Jaswinder Singh, an undertrial in a bootlegging case,
stood up to announce that his hair had been forcibly cut. He even
climbed a wall to show the media his shorn hair.
What started at 11 am went on well
past afternoon and inmates burnt furniture and several housing
complexes, including the library, workshop, hospital and record
room, inside the premises.They threw bricks and pieces of broken
wood at jail officials who ran helter-skelter to save their lives.
It was only later that they fired in the air to control the rioting
mob. But by this time many of the prisoners tried to scale the
boundary wall of the jail and escape. None of them however managed
to do that.
The district police which came
after two hours first tried teargassing the gitators and then shoved
them back with water cannons, but there was little to show that it
deterred the furious lot. Looking helpless, prison officers
eventually climbed on rooftops and begged the prisoners to calm
down. When nothing seemed to help, orders came from the top to open
prohibitory fire.
Quite clear in its mind that the
wardens failed in controlling the situation, jail superintendent
Satpal Singh was immediately suspended. DIG Narinder Pal Singh, SSP
Arpit Shukla and deputy commissioner Ajit Singh Pannu held a meeting
with prisoners and said their grievances would be looked into.
An inquiry into the whole fiasco,
to be conducted by a magistrate, has been marked. Senior police
officers, however, accepted that had there been better coordination
between them and the administration, the situation could have been
stopped from spiraling out of contro
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