Date:04/03/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/03/04/stories/2007030403370300.htm

Karnataka - Belgaum

Prakash for prison reforms

Staff Correspondent

`90 p.c. of inmates have shown signs of repentance and have a desire to return home'

Belgaum: Home Minister M.P. Prakash on Saturday stressed the need for bringing in reforms to improve the living condition in jails.

Speaking to presspersons after visiting the Hindalga Central Jail here, he said about 90 per cent of the inmates showed signs of repentance and had a desire to return home and live with their families and friends. Many such convicts and undertrials were not professional criminals or offenders, but had committed crimes under certain circumstances and were repenting for what they had done.

Mr. Prakash inspected the kitchen and other facilities provided in the jail and spent three hours with the convicts and undertrials. The inmates complained to him about the low quality of food, lethargy and negligence by officials in preparing cases for remission on the basis of good conduct, bribery in preparing such remissions, denial of parole even in case of emergency, and ill treatment. He said that he wished to improve the conditions in the jails in the State. Additional Director General of Police S.T. Ramesh accompanied Mr. Prakash.

There are 14 convicts facing death sentence in the jail here. Nine of them have submitted mercy petitions to the President. Four have gone for appeal in the Supreme Court and one in the Karnataka High Court. Sources said that the mercy petitions in respect of four cases had been rejected.

Meanwhile, the jail authorities have been conducting hanging trials for the past few days under the supervision of jailer S.R. Kamble, who is the only officer in Karnataka through with the procedure and method adopted for hanging convicts.

Mr. Prakash said the Government had plans to provide pay telephones for the convenience of prisoners in the Hindalga jail on an experimental basis. The proceeds from the service would be utilised on the maintenance of the jail.

If the experiment turned out to be useful and helped in bringing down reports of prisoners keeping mobile phones in violation of rules, prisoners in other jails would also get the facility, he said.

The Home Minister said the Government was ready to provide food to the inmates of the Hindalga Jail through ISKCON. Volunteers of ISKCON were known for preparing good food and once they started providing food to inmates, there would be no complaints, he said.