Tihar jailbreak: Where Faizan let freedom slip away

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The 6X5 feet drain looks like a gloomy place filled with dark drain water, slush and muck. At places it has wild vegetation hanging over from the adjoining plot of wasteland, so much so that one cannot see the drain further than a few feet from Jail Road, at a spot roughly half-a-kilometre from Gate No. 3 of the Tihar complex. On its right it has the 16-feet high prison wall looming over it. Tihar jail authorities said at places the drain is filled with waste water upto four or five feet while it lies puddled with receding water and slush by the time it opens out onto jail road. Deserted and dark, the only signs of life around the drain is a solitary armed guard overlooking jail road from a watchtower inside the jail premises. He stands overlooking the spot where both the undertrials had climbed out of the drain onto the pavement, onto jail road and off to a freedom shortlived, as per police sources.

Yet Tihar jail authorities claim Faizan stay put for nearly fifteen hours in this drain. “He was frightened when he realised that Javed, the smarter and sharper of the two, had abandoned him. He realised that he would have walked out on bail anyway, and that having made this illegal escape would in fact, fetch him a stricter and longer jail term. He therefore, did not dare to venture out of the drain,” DIG (Tihar) Mukesh Prasad said.

A senior police officer said, “As per our investigations, Javed and Faizan walked out of their jail premises at 6 am on Saturday. They breached the three walls sometime between 6 am and 9 am. Faizan was nabbed by Tihar jail authorities post midnight after which we were informed about the incident. We then began hunting for Javed. Also, the hole in the wall was found by the authorities of Jail No. 8 at around 3 pm. But they found no one missing from their prison. They, however, did not inform us at the time. They found the two undertrials missing from Jail No. 7 only after the 6 0’ clock roll call.”

Javed and Faizan, police and jail authorities said, scaled the peripheral wall and landed in the drain, on Saturday morning. “Faizan suffered a sprain in his ankle. However, both waded through the drain together and got out of it. They then reached the road which goes to Sagarpur through Gandhi market. There they parted ways, Javed going to Chirag Dilli in South Delhi and Faizan elsewhere, a location we will not be disclosing. However, in the complaint the Tihar jail authorities submitted to us, they wrote that they had caught Faizan from a spot in the drain past midnight. We registered a case on the basis of the complaint, formed a team with Tihar authorities and began tracking Javed,” a senior police officer said.

The west district police formally arrested both Faizan and Javed on Thursday evening. Both were produced before a court and police were granted two days of custody for both.