JAMMERS NOT PURCHASED BY THE JAIL DEPARTMENT FOR 6 YEARS, DISCLOSED IN RTI, JAIL MINISTER'S CLAIMS OF MAKING PUNJAB JAILS MOBILE PHONES FREE ARE HOLLOW : MANIK GOYAL
Sanjay Mishra/ Chandigarh
The issue of mobile phones in jails in Punjab is always a hot topic. In the recent past, the big role of mobile phones used in jails has come out in the murder of famous young singer Sidhu Moosewala. After which, the present government's Prisons Minister Mr. Harjot Bains has been repeatedly making claims to make prisons free of mobile phones.
Amidst these claims, an RTI activist living in Mansa has made a big revelation through the information extracted through RTI that the Punjab Government Jail Department has not purchased a single mobile jammer in the last 6 years.
Manik Goyal said that previous governments did not take the use of mobile phones in jails seriously .4G rolled out across India in late 2016 and the Jails Department of the Punjab government has not purchased jammers since early 2016. This clearly and directly means that the jammers installed in the 27 jails in Punjab are not capable of blocking the 4G signal running today.(SUBHEAD)
Goyal said that “Present government's Jails Minister Harjot Bains is making claims of mobile phone free jails, which are completely hollow. If they really want to make jails mobile phone free, 4G signal jammers should be immediately installed in jails ,instead of making hollow and outlandish claims It is impossible to make jails mobile free without new technology jammers.
“It is beyond comprehension why Jails Minister Harjot Bains is not installing 4G signal jammers in jails instead of making false claims. When 4G jammers are installed in jails, there will be no need for mobile phones to work and no need to repeatedly raid and seize phones. Most criminal nexuses will be broken by shutting down mobile phones in the jails. If Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann and Jails Minister Harjot Bains really want to break the nexus running through mobile phones in jails, they should install 4G jammers in jails on a priority basis and issue orders to jail officials to use Wi-Fi themselves.”
This RTI information is taken from the office of Special Director General of Police (Prisons), Punjab.
