Probe slams officers, staff for largest Naxal jailbreak

The report of the inquiry, conducted by Development Commissioner (Bastar) R S Vishwakarma, has been given to Chief Minister Raman Singh, Home Minister Ram Vichar Netam, Chief Secretary Shivraj Singh and Principal Secretary (Home) N K Aswal. Confirming the report’s receipt, Netam told The Indian Express that the government would initiate action against officials indicted. “We have already initiated several steps to tighten security at all prison facilities housing Maoist extremists,” he added.

It’s not going to be easy given the key findings of the report, a copy of which is with The Indian Express:

* The jail’s capacity was 150 prisoners, at the time of the attack there were 377 inmates.

* Naxalites were deliberately not shifted to the Central Prison in Jagdalpur as this would have reduced the inmate count which, in turn, would have cut down prison’s fund allocation for feeding inmates. This indicates a “corruption angle.”

* Of the total sanctioned strength of 22 prison officials — including one assistant jailer, five head guards and 16 guards — only four “unarmed guards” were present on duty during the jailbreak.

* The prison has two roof watchtowers manned by two guards during the night. When the jailbreak happened, no guard was present on these towers. A guard Hiranand Ajgale was on duty behind the prison and he wasn’t there when the alarm was raised.

* The alleged mastermind of the incident, Sujeet Kumar, also known as “Commander” inside the jail, was allowed to move around in the prison freely even outside the main gate and the prison armoury. This has been authenticated by statements of several guards. Sujeet mobilised a mob and over-ran the jail in barely 15 minutes.

He was able to break open the wooden door of the room where several weapons, including one Insas rifle, three muskets, three .303 rifles and 237 rounds of bullets were kept.

These weapons should have been kept in a nearby armoury which had a steel door. “Weapons and ammunition were kept at such a place from where they could have been looted easily. This reinforces the suspicion of involvement of jailer with the fleeing inmates,” the report says.

* The fleeing inmates tied up round-in-charge Sunil Kumar Pujari and head guard Jaiprakash Kannoje. Hearing gunfire, a frightened guard in-charge Shambhuram Sahu hid behind the wall. No one tried to stop the fleeing inmates, there was no provision of a reserve guard.

* Just minutes before the incident, jailer B S Mankar left the premises, accompanied with his wife, without taking any prior permission from his superiors.

* Sahu has deposed that although he headed the guards, he was not handed the charge of the armoury. He claimed he hasn’t even been trained to fire a rifle while adding that rifles at the armoury weren’t even tested after last year’s monsoon season. Security guards on duty that day were not trained to fire weapons.

* Assistant Jailer R R Rai said that when Mankar was on leave he was asked to prepare a list of suspected Naxal inmates so that they could be transferred to the Central jail. However, when Mankar returned from leave, he refused to forward the list.

The report has indicted several top police and administration officers:

* DIG (Prisons ) P D Verma: Did not follow guidelines with regard to transfer of Naxalite prisoners to the high-security Central jails. Besides he failed to act on numerous complaints against jailer B S Mankar. He also didn’t prepare a roster for inspection of state prisons, which included several inspections of Dantewara jail.

* District Collector K R Pisda: Failed to inspect the jail every month as provided under Section 82 of the jail rules. Only one such inspection was carried out by him during the last one and a half years. He did recommend additional security for the jail but failed to ensure that the directive was complied with.

* Superintendent of Police (Dantewara) Rahul Sharma: Failed to make available additional security as asked for by the Collector. Overlooked jail headquarters directive to provide one platoon of armed forces for prison security. Failed to inspect the jail even once.

* Chief Medical Officer who was also Jail Superintendent G S Thakur: Did not inspect the jail, didn’t apprise authorities of complaints against jailer.

* Jailer B S Mankar: Undue patronage to Sujeet; was absent from duty on the day of jail break. Failed to transfer Naxalite inmates to the high security Jagdalpur Central prison.