Khunti, November 7: The flight by nine convicts from Khunti jail on Wednesday morning has brought into sharp focus the utterly lax security and inhuman conditions of the prisons here.Till date, only two of the prisoners who had escaped have been nabbed. One of them, Pratiya Bandhan Munde lay dead in the Rajendra Medical College Hospital (RMCH) in Ranchi, 30 km from Khunti, with the police awaiting his autopsy report. The other, Kanda Munda, was undergoing treatment in the general ward of the same hospital with marks of cuts and wounds all over his body - both victims of official brutality and the inhuman prison conditions.Khunti jail was set up by the British government in 1911 with a maximum capacity of 65 prisoners. On the day of the jail-break there were as many as 465 prisoners housed there. Earlier, in June, a prisoner died an unnatural death there. Last month, some inmates of this jail fell ill. Subsequently, a group of them sat on a dharna inside the jail demanding proper habitation, hygienic food, water, medicine and sleeping place. The dharna was later ended on the intervention of the jail authorities, recount two inmates.The escape attempt and the subsequent tragedy finds its causes in the frustatingly sub-human conditions prevalent in the prison; making use of the unhealthy scene prevalent in the jail, five prisoners - S Horo, M Nayak, S Tirkey, C Oraon and K Munda - are said to have spread the rumour among the inmates that the jail was ``infected with venereal diseases''. They also reportedly incited them on Tuesday evening saying that if they wanted to save their lives, they had only one alternative to escape from the jail on Wednesday morning when its Superintendent, Gupta was not around.Their game-plan worked on the inmates. On the same morning at around 7.30 am all five together with four others - C Nayak, P Lohara, Kande and Partiya - assembled at the rear gate of the jail where security man, Hamid Ansari, was on duty. Soon, Tirkey in the guise of a sweeper, caught hold of Ansari. One among them snatched the bunch of keys from Ansari's pocket, opened the gate ran forward, unlocked the front gate and escaped with the rest eight prisoners following him from behind, recalled Kanda, lying on the hospital bed at the RMCH.Ansari raised the alarm and gave chase, joined by some other jail personnel from the official residences outside this premises. They managed to overtake Bandhan and Kanda, and with the help of a dozen-odd people at a nearby village and beat them up, said two eye witnesses who don't want to be identified. Bandhan died on the spot, they added.Meanwhile RCMH superintendent A P Singh says, ``Kanda's condition is stable. He didn't carry any bullet injury. He will be released soon.''As per the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) guideline, the Ranchi district administration has arranged for videography of Bandhan's postmortem and sought for details about this jail break from the Khunti jail.Superintendent, Tushar Ranjan Gupta was in the town on Wednesday. ``He had not informed me before leaving the station. But after the incident, Gupta did tell me, he had gone to Ranchi on Tuesday for official consultations with senior jail officials there'', Khunti Sub Divisional Officer, Ajay Kumar Singh who is a controlling authority of this jail told The Indian Express today.In all, there are eight security men in charge of this jail. Of them three were on leave and two others Pardhan and Ansari were on duty. Ansari has been placed under suspension by Gupta.In separate letters to the NHRC chairman, a number of local politicians and human right activists have demanded an inquiry into this case besides penal action against those jail personnel who were responsible for the killing of Bandhan.
