(DJL) Preliminary Investigation Report on Jails in Jharkhand

Taking note of the overall spate in the arrests of activists of
various movements—such as the anti-displacement movements, movement
for the rights to land, forests and forest wealth, labour rights,
cultural rights, the Maoist movement—the civil rights activists from
various regions had decided to organize a fact finding mission of jail
visits to all the regions of the subcontinent. The civil rights groups
had taken note of the readiness of the Government of the day to reduce
all problems of the people of socio-political and economic
significance to a question of law and order. This again has been
taking place at a juncture when the Government of India had armed
itself with such draconian laws that had allowed the various agencies
of the state to be more arbitrary than ever while dealing with any
kind of political dissent. Especially at a time when it is
implementing aggressively the so-called third generation reforms which
is nothing but the policies of Liberalisation, Privatisation and
Globalisation.

The fact finding team to Jharkhand comprised of Prof. MK Hassan,
Former Vice Chancellor, Ranchi University and also Coordinator of the
present mission, Dr. Sashi Bhushan Pathak, General Secreatry, PUCL,
Jharkhand, Mr. Prabhat Kumar Dehati, Former Minister, Jharkhand,
Prof. A. Marx, Vice President, Committee for the Release of Political
Prisoners (CRPP), Prof. Manas Joardar, Working President, Bandi Mukti
Committee (BMC) West Bengal, Dr. Mithilesh, PUCL Jharkhand, Mr.
Chhoton Das, General Secretary, BMC and also Secretary, Finance,
(CRPP), Advocate Kesavan, Committee for the Protection of Civil
Liberties, Tamil Nadu, Sugumaran, General Secretary, Forum for
People's Rights (Pondicherry) and also Secretary, (CRPP), Mr. Rona
Wilson, Secretary, Public Relations, (CRPP), Mr. Shiv Nandan,
Executive Member, (CRPP), Mr. Mehtab Alam, Executive Member, (CRPP).
The team visited the jails in the State of Jharkhand from 19 to 21
July 2008.

Advocate Prashant Jena, Orissa, Lateef Mohd. Khan, Gen. Secretary,
CLMT, Hyderabad, Adv. A. Dasharatha, Adv. Balakrishna, AP, Adv.
Ravindra, AP, Ms. Ratnamala, APCLC, AP, Adv. Kashinath and Sujato
Bhadra, Vice-President, CRPP could not join the team due to last
minute exigencies.

Initial reflections of the team:

The team visited the prisons of Latehar, Garwa, Daltonganj, Ranchi,
and Giridih. On the 19th the teams had visited Giridih and Latehar.
The team to Giridih comprised of Mr. Shiv Nandan, Mehtab Alam and Rona
Wilson. The rest of the team members who arrived on the morning of
19th proceeded to Latehar, Garwa and Daltonganj. A. Marx, Sugumaran,
Kesavan, Manas Joardar, Tapan Das, Sashi Bhushan Pathak and Prabhat
Kumar Dehati comprised the team to the latter destination.

Giridih Team Detained: The team to Giridih had to face a hostile SP of
police in Mr. Murari Lal Meena. The manner in which the team was
received at the jail premises itself made it clear that the jail
officials were aware of the visit of the team. But throughout his
conversation the SP feigned ignorance of having received any
communication about the visit and branded the team members as
suspicious elements roaming around a high security prison. He even
raised his suspicion that the PAN cards of the team members were
forged! The officer was so prejudiced that at the outset itself he
started branding the team members as supporters of the Maoists doing
anti-national activities. He seized the mobiles of the team members
and interrogated them on each and every call that they had made to
different people. He arrogantly told the members that such ‘self-
appointed human rights wallahs’ who are corrupt are a bane to this
society. According to the version of the learned SP, the team members
were found loitering in a highly suspicious manner near such a high
security prison like Giridih and they can be booked! His other charge
was that all such activities of such human rights groups are being
funded by the Maoists, especially the PUCL of Jharkhand. He claimed
that he had hard evidence with which he could arrest the team members
and they would not get bail for a year! Further he ridiculously
threatened that if any jail break happened in the next 2-3 months, the
present team could be booked! The psychological intimidation and
harassment continued for more than 4 hours. This team not only
strongly condemns such high handed authoritarianism of the SP of
Giridih Mr. Murari Lal Meena; it also maintains that he had broken the
law by trespassing into the arena of the system of justice which alone
is in a position to grant or reject bail. Moreover, the whole
detention for four years is illegal in nature and for which the
arrogant SP could be booked according to the law of the land which he
himself is supposed to peotect.

Delaying tactics by the Officials in Ranchi and Hazaribagh: The
officials in Hazaribagh jail initially deliberately refused to let the
team visit and only after a lot of persuasion could the members get
the permission, and that too at a time when there was hardly an hour
left for the prison to be closed. It was impossible for the team to
visit such a huge prison within such a short period of time. The
authorities flatly refused to let the team meet all the prisoners
especially the Maoist prisoners. They even refused to provide the
exact number of the political prisoners in the Hazaribagh prison.

In Ranchi, the team there could not enter till the SP came as the
other officials were not ready to give permission. But by the time the
team got permission it was late as the scheduled departure of the team
from Ranchi to their respective home towns in other states was at 3
pm. So the team could see the prison with 4000 inmates only for 20
minutes. We condemn such tendencies of the prison officials as such
attitudes will never help the improvement of the system of jail
administration or the overall well being of the prisoners. If the
state really wants to bring about reforms within jails—which they
prefer to call ‘correctional homes’ and thus change the attitude of
the prisoners before they leave the prisons after serving sentence,
then such arbitrary, authoritarian attitudes should be altogether
removed. One should not expect prisoners to change unless the powers-
that-be remained the fascistic in nature.

Successful trip to Latehar, Garwa and Daltonganj: The team could
finish the jail visit to Latehar on the 19th. The attitude of the SP
and the officials of the prison are worth mentioning. The jail SP Mr.
Ganesh Prasad Das and the medical officer Dr. SK Singh were very kind
and cooperative to the prisoners. Particularly the Medical Officer who
is a permanent appointee has been outstanding with whose efforts the
death rate in the prison which was 2-3 per year due to diseases and
lack of medical care have been brought to nil .

Some initial findings from all the prisons:

1. Overcrowded Prisons: All the prisons are crowded with inmates twice
or thrice its permissible capacity except the newly-made Ranchi
prison. Daltonganj jail at present accommodates 839 people in place of
391, Garwa prison 414 in place of 148 and Latehar 191 in place of 161.
In the Hazaribagh prison there were 2767 inmates in place of 1330. In
the Daltonganj prison, around 70-80 prisoners are locked in a small
room.

2. No permanent Doctors/ virtual absence of medical facility: There
were no permanent doctors for most of the prisons the team could
visit. In Hazaribagh and Latehar, there was a permanent Medical
officer. In Hazaribagh, apart from the MO there was a male doctor and
a lady doctor to attend to the women’s wards that were 3 in number
with a capacity for 33 inmates. None of these prisons had a nurse or
even a pharmacist. Because of the efforts of the MOs of Latehar and
Hazaribagh they could train a convict to be their assistant playing
the role of the druggist. In Daltonganj, there is a ward with 20 beds
without a doctor. There are no facilities to treat prisoners with
contagious diseases. In Latehar, the prisoners with contagious
diseases are kept in a separate room which does not even have a cot or
bed. The Hazaribagh MO claimed that they had separate wards for TB
patients and those infected with leprosy. But the team was not taken
to these wards. This prison also had a hospital with 106 beds (which
again the team could not visit), a small operation room and also
reasonably sufficient medical supplies.
In the Hazaribagh prison, the MO gave statistics of having conducted
operations of Hernia (4), Hydrocoel (36), cataract (12) ever since his
appointment.
In the Garwa prison, Mr. Choton Dubey, who was having heart and lung
disease, used to vomit blood—was taken to the local RIMS hospital and
was referred to Delhi. But till date he has not been taken to Delhi.
There is Mr. Nizamuddin with scabies all over the body. There were 3
prisoners having mental disorder in Daltonganj, and Garwa had one
prisoner with mental disorder.
In many of the prisons there are no provisions to treat inmates
suffering from contagious diseases.
In Hazaribagh prison, the MO reported that there was a case of HIV
positive prisoner who was given bail. In the Garwa prison there was a
prisoner who claimed that he was HIV positive and being neglected by
the prison authorities. But the authorities maintained that the claim
by the prisoner was wrong.

3. No Women’s ward: Like in any other prison in the Indian
subcontinent the prisons of Latehar, Garwa and Daltonganj lacked
separate wards for women. In many cases they were crammed into small
cubicles. In the Hazaribagh prison, the authorities claimed that there
is a separate women’s block with 3 wards having the capacity of 33
each and also crèche for the infants of the women prisoners. But the
team was not allowed to visit the same. As women are not provided with
separate wards, under the pretext of segregating them from men they
are further confined in their crammed cubicles for a longer period of
the day when they should be actually moving outside.

4. No Juvenile wards: In most of the prisons, there are hardly any
juvenile wards. Hazaribagh prison has a juvenile ward with 40
capacity. Like the women prisoners the mobility of the juvenile
prisoners is also restricted under the garb of protecting them from
sexual abuse by other adult prisoners.

5. More Under-Trials than convicted prisoners: In all the prisons
apart from the feature of overcrowding, the strength of UTs far
outnumbered the convicts. None of the prison officials was ready to
share the details of the number of years each under-trial prisoner has
been in the prison. Another important aspect that should be
immediately considered is the engaging of Under-Trial prisoners to do
hard physical labour. The possibility of these prisoners being
exploited as labourers in the house holds of the officials cannot be
ruled out.

6. Underpaid labour: In all the prisons, the prisoners who were
undergoing hard labour are paid a paltry sum of Rs.16/- while those
doing what the prison officials categorize as medium labour are paid
Rs. 14/- and still those who are doing what is told as light labour
are paid Rs. 12/-. All these rates at the outset violate the law of
minimum wages and tools for easy exploitation of the prisoner. When
asked as to what the criteria of categorization into hard, medium and
light labour were, there was no clear answer from the prison
officials. The prisoners will not get access to the pay till they are
released. The money is deposited in the Post Office Savings Bank
account which will only be released to the prisoner once he/she is
acquitted. Thus the labour that the prisoner performs will not provide
any succour to his/her family till the prisoner sees the light.

7. Food and Hygiene: In most of the prisons the food that was served
was far below the desirable quality. It was reported that the
political prisoners (Maoist Prisoners) in Hazaribagh had sat on a
hunger strike demanding the jail manual. But we were told that so far
these prisoners were not provided with the manual on the flimsy
pretext that it would compromise the jail security. The jail officials
further gave the appalling statistics of a paltry Rs. 20/- for the
provision of 3 meals a day. Apart from the usual provision of cooked
vegetarian food, the prisoners were offered non-vegetarian food once
in a week only between the months of November – February. The hygiene
in the prisons of Jharkhand carries the usual tale of prison
conditions in India. The drains overflowing with filth often become
the breeding grounds for mosquitoes. Since Jharkhand has a high rate
of mosquito-borne diseases it becomes important for the authorities to
look into the overall cleanliness of the prison premises. There is
only a single crammed latrine in every ward of the prisons. The
authorities in Hazaribagh claimed that the prisoners do their
ablutions in the day time in provisions outside but how far it is
implemented is for everyone to see.

8. Third degree torture on prisoners in Garwa: On the day of the
team’s visit to Garwa prison (20th July) the inmates there had
resorted to a hunger strike. In, fact, almost everything in that
prison seemed to be in disarray. What shocked the team was the
barbaric sight of two prisoners in handcuffs and chains wound around
their ankles with bruises littered all over their body. The prisoners
had to carry the chain as they moved. From their movements it was
clear that they were brutally tortured. The three prisoners who were
tortured are Rupesh Vishwakarma, Shyam Raj Sharma and Saurav Kumar.
They were tortured by the DSP of the prison Satyendra Narayan Singh
for their alleged bid to escape and later being apprehended in the
premises itself with a pistol! The prisoners had injuries all over
from head to toe, their nails were pulled out and needles were
inserted into the space between nails and the skin. (Photos attached).
The same DSP also had tortured another prisoner Mr. MD Alam who was
arrested under fake currency charges.

9. The Plight of the Maoist Prisoners: Most of the political prisoners
in Jharkhand are from the Maoist movement or having framed for alleged
links with the same. In most of the prisons one could not get exact
statistics of the Maoist prisoners. In Latehar prison alone, they were
around 50. There were more than 100 prisoners of the same category in
Daltonganj. In Hazaribagh, the prison officials after much questioning
gave the figure of 100-150. The most striking thing about all these
prisoners are the alarming number of cases lodged against them. In
most of the cases, the prisoners themselves are not aware as to how
many cases have been lodged against them. Add to this the abysmally
slow trial procedures. There are several Maoist prisoners with
hundreds of cases on them. Mr. Nathany Mistry, who is lodged in the
Latehar prison, has 250 cases on him. Mr. Shyambehas Kanu has been
languishing in the prison since October 2001, charged with 60 cases
against him. Like wise, Mr. Kameshwar Baitha has a total of 240
charges filed against him by the UP, Bihar and Jharkhand governments.
Those filed by the UP government could not be established in the court
of law and stand quashed. Other cases, as is the practice everywhere,
whether Maoist political activities are banned or not—to file
innumerable cases against a Maoist suspect and to make him/her
languish behind bars for an indefinite period as a victim of
interminable legal proceedings. There are also such instances of a BJP
supporter (Mr. Mantu Prasad) arrested and tortured and later
implicated as an ‘extremist’. Another instance is that of Mr.
Awadeshram Misra, an LIC agent. Sanjay Jadav, Suresh Bhuiya, Bhola
Singh and many others have been similarly framed.

10. No facility for Conference with lawyers: In almost all the
prisons, there is hardly any facility for the lawyer to meet and talk
with the prisoner. The Mulakat is done with the family through the
wire meshes that will separate the family from the prisoner by about 4
to 5 feet. One can hardly communicate anything in that commotion
during the visiting hours when everyone will be shouting to make their
word heard.

11. No library facility; no newspapers: In almost all the prisons
there is hardly any library or reading room available for the
prisoner. In many cases, there is hardly any provision for newspapers.
Wherever there is a library, as is claimed in the Hazaribagh prison,
it is not properly maintained. One is yet to know whether all the
prisoners are allowed to use the library, and can get the kind of
literature he/she would want to read.

12. No separate Jail manual for Jharkhand: The prisons in the state of
Jharkhand still function with the Jail Manual jointly made for Bihar
and Jharkhand. That the authorities are not at all serious about the
prison conditions in Jharkhand is evident from their callous attitude
to update the manual keeping in mind the specific conditions of
Jharkhand.

13. ‘Humanisation Drive’: The prison authorities claim that they have
been conducting ‘humanisation drives’ inside the prisons. These
include schemes such as Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, Literacy Mission, the
so-called Art of Living and the last but not the least, yoga. In a
supercharged atmosphere punctuated with lack of political will along
with corrupt practices and abysmal non-performance as the underlying
features, the meaningful success of any such welfare schemes becomes
an empty claim. Nevertheless, we would invite the attention of the
concerned authorities to look into our findings and immediately
address some of the pressing problems.

Our Demands:

A. Immediately prepare a separate jail manual for Jharkhand keeping in
mind the specific needs of the times thus removing all outdated
regulations of the colonial times while trying to evolve a prison
policy in consultation with the human rights groups, intellectuals who
have been raising their concerns about prison and prison conditions.
It should also keep in mind that many people have been charged with
committing ‘political offences’. People charged under sections 121A/
120B and other such sections which deal with the clauses of ‘waging
war against the state’ or other ‘political offences’ should be treated
as ‘political prisoners’ and separate acts should be enacted by the
Jharkhand and state governments to accord the status of political
prisoners to all these prisoners.
B. Immediately form separate wards for Women and Juvenile prisoners in
all the prisons.
C. Stop the practice of forced labour of Under-Trial prisoners.
D. Provide proper medical facilities. Provide permanent doctors in all
the prisons.
E. Provide separate wards for prisoners with contagious diseases. Give
them adequate facilities for their cure.
F. Arrange payment as per the government norms of minimum wages for
the labour of the prisoner.
G. Immediately suspend the DSP of Garwa Prison Mr. Satyendra Narayan
Singh for the brutal torture that he has committed on the prisoners.
Take proper action after an enquiry which comprises of civil rights
groups and retired judges of repute.
H. Provide proper conference facility for the prisoners with their
lawyers in all the prisons.
I. Stop the procedure of Mulakat through wire meshes. Allow the prison
to meet whomsoever he/she wants at a proper room provided with chairs
and other facilities.
J. Provide library facilities with all books and periodicals that the
prisoners demand. All books provided by prison authorities, right
groups/civil rights groups should also be included in the library. The
library should be able to cater to the needs of the prisoner. News
papers should also be provided without any censorship.
K. Ensure the speedy trial of all cases of the political prisoners
including the Maoist prisoners. There should be an independent
committee of retired judges, civil rights activists and intellectuals
of repute who should study the nature of the cases filed against
political prisoners as most of them are filed as an act of political
vendetta so that these prisoners will never see the light of the day.
This committee should unmask the reality behind the surfeit of cases
piled against the political prisoners. All the political prisoners and
their lawyers should be aware of the kind of charges filed against
them.
We finally would thank the IG Prisons for cooperating with us. We once
again would condemn in the strongest possible words the arbitrary and
authoritarian nature of the Giridih SP Mr. Murarilal Meena. This was a
clear case of illegal detention which is unconstitutional and
punishable by law. In the interest of democracy, he should be brought
to book.

Prof. MK
Hassan
Dated, 25 July 2008
Coordinator, Former Vice Chancellor,
Ranchi University.

The team-members:
Prof. Manas Joardar, West Bengal, Prof. A. Marx, Tamil Nadu, Advocate
Kesavan Tamil Nadu, Sugumaran, Pondicherry, Tapan Das, West Bengal,
Dr. Sashi Bhusahn Pathak, Jharkhand, Shiv Nandan, Jammu & Kashmir, Dr.
Mithilesh, Jharkhand, Rona Wilson, New Delhi, Mahtab Alam New Delhi.