Senior jail officers visited jail barracks, checked on the essential commodities for prisoners, had dinner with the jail staff.
Mumbai: In attempt to boost the morale of the senior officers and staff who are in quarantine for a week at Yerwada Central Prison in Pune, two of their senior officers stayed overnight with them. The Yerwada jail has the maximum of staff among all the prisons in Maharashtra.
Additional Director General of Police (ADG, Prison) Sunil Ramanand and Deputy Inspector General (DIG, Prison) Yogesh Desai after spending a night on April 18 with staff in Yerwada Jail Pune got themselves medically diagnosed and with certificates in hand then went to the respective offices. The senior officers created history to dine with jail staff amidst the COVID-19 outbreak.
Yogesh Desai, DIG (Prison) said, “We have kept the five prisons of the state in complete lockdown. No one can go out or come in. Pune has turned into a hot spot zone following the spread of the corona virus. We spent one night with the jail staff they have been disconnected with their families from last 8 days, it was necessary to boost their morale.”
” This jail is already overcrowded and thus social distancing is next to impossible. However we have quarantined the entire jail staff, 177 here. The virus can spread either through staff or any visitor thus everything is under lockdown,” added Desai.
There are four-medical practitioners and two psychologists in this jail continuously to give medical and moral support to the jail staff and jail-inmates.
“After spending a night with the jail Superintendent, jail staff we went to health centre in Pune, both of us got examined and took fitness certificates and then reached our offices,” he added.
U T Pawar the Jail Superintendent of Yerwada jail said, “The staff was under pressure and hence I decided to stay with them. We got ourselves medically examined. The jail inmates are also depressed as now they are totally cut off from the outside world and cannot meet their families thus the mental pressure on them is also too high.”
Maharashtra jails are making an effort to keep the corona virus at bay. The state prisons are having the capacity of 24,000 jail-inmates the state jails are already crowded with 36,000 jail-inmates. With 12,000 excess jail inmates it is difficult to follow social distancing to stop the spread of coronavirus.
When Asian country like India is making all efforts to break the chain of novel corona virus, Maharashtra state five jails have gone under lockdown from last week.
The Home Minister Anil Deshmukh passed order to lockdown five prisons in the state completely so that no one can go out or come inside the jail. Supreme Court ordered to all states to release some prisoners on parole to reduce overcrowding in prisons amid the COVID-19 outbreak. The step was necessitated to stop the spread of Corona virus among the jail inmates and staff of the jails.
Thus, Deshmukh in this fight against Corona asked, the five state prisons Arthur Road Jail at Jacob Circle, Thane Central Jail, Kalyan Central Jail, Taloja Central Jail and Yerwada Jail have gone in strict lockdown and the staff at most of the jails has gone into complete lockdown from April 11, 2020.- By Santoshee Gulabkali Mishra
