The jail conditions in Punjab have again come to the fore with another case of suicide reported in newspapers on 3rd May, 2001. The Central Jail, Ludhiana has remained in the news since long where more than eight prisoners have died due to various reasons.
The latest incident of suicide by an undertrial is another black mole on the conditions prevailing in the jail.
Jeet Singh, son of Lal Singh, resident of Sidhwan Bet in District Ludhiana was arrested under NDPS few days ago and sent to judicial custody only two-three days ago. Alleged to be a drug addict, the undertrial was hale and hearty when brought to the Central Jail, Ludhiana. Suddenly on 2nd May, 2001 at about 2 P.M. he allegedly committed suicide by hanging himself in the toilet of the barrack where he was lodged. The inmates of the barrack accuse the jail administration for not giving him the required medicines which the deceased wanted to get. According to other inmates, he was neither attended to by the jail doctor nor given any medicine, particularly when he had complained of pain in his body. The jail administration while denying this allegation pleaded that the deceased was a habitual drug addict and had demanded drugs from the jail officials and when he could not get the drugs, he committed suicide. They said that since the prisoners are medically examined on Monday and Thursday, the deceased could not be medically examined as he had not reported in the jail hospital in time.
Another startling fact, which is certainly a matter of great concern, if it has any streak of credence, came to our notice that while few undertrial police officials are provided with every kind of luxarious items like wine, women and even mobile phones inside the Central Jail, Ludhiana, many poor prisoners are not even provided proper medical treatment. Their is no regular check-up of prisoners by the jail doctors. Paucity of funds, non-availability of required medicines and free flow of drugs inside the jail, adds to the plight of the prisoners. Many prisoners told that most of the prisoners suffer from sexually transmitted diseases as sodomy and unnatural acts are quite common among the prisoners.
A team of investigators of our body headed by Sh.Shashi Sharma of Jalandhar and Sh.Anil Sharma have opined that the deceased Jeet Singh has died due to the negligence of the jail officials and if his condition was not normal, the jail doctors were required to take special care to avoid any untoward incident. Our body holds the jail officials of Central Jail, Ludhiana responsible for the loss of life of the deceased and demand a high level judicial inquiry into the conditions prevailing in Central Jail, Ludhiana and to fix responsibility on the officials for this lapse and also demand from the State government that an interim compensation should be paid to the next of the kin of the deceased.