Welcome to the prison of the free — Port Blair Jail. Generous hospitality? More likely a situation arising out of the ongoing tug-of-war between New Delhi and Myanmar, Indonesia and Thailand. Thanks to which the 750 prisoners — all foreigners — get to roam the city.Caught mainly for poaching rich marine life in Indian territory, all have served their sentence and are awaiting deportation. Technically, that makes them prisoners of the Indian Government.The Andamans administration, not knowing what to do with them till the issuance of release order, has thrown up its hands in despair. As a result, the ‘prisoners’ spend their nights in the jail’s ‘open barracks’ and roam the city by day. Almost all manage to find jobs with various business establishments.DIG of Andaman & Nicobar, Sudhir Yadav, says there is nothing they can do. Most prisoners, he says, are from Myanmar and given the track record of its junta, their actual deportation can take as long as one year. The process is cumbersome: it entails the Home Ministry giving prisoners’ details to External Affairs Ministry that contacts their parent country so they can be identified and deported.He adds the administration is legally required to give each Rs 45 a day for food and other needs. And as there are only 1,000 policemen around, it’s not possible to keep an eye on the 750 men.Port Blair jailer Mohammed Hanif agrees with Yadav but underlines the phenomenon of ‘repeat convicts’ — a fair percentage of the men deported come back on the next available boat. The arithmetic of little effort yielding big gains is simple. Police officials say an average sea-poacher who enters Indian waters as a helping hand in a boat becomes its owner after two sorties, owing to the rich killings. For instance, a sea cucumber — a delicacy in most of south-east Asia — fetches Rs 25,000 a piece and a sea-crocodile can bag Rs 20 lakh.Hanif says there is no way these men can be shoved into jail. It was made to hold only 250 (probably given the otherwise negligible crime-rate on the Islands). “Just when we maange to release one batch, the next arrives,’’ he says.
