Cell phones recovered from Presidency jail after CM push

Kolkata: Bengal CM Suvendu Adhikari on Friday announced the suspension of two jail officials following raids on the Presidency Correctional Home, in which 23 mobile phone sets were spotted among prisoners and seized by the police. The four-hour raid was conducted on Thursday night.Adhikari said the mobile phones, including smartphones, were used extensively inside Presidency jail. M Kujur, superintendent of the correctional home, and Dipto Ghorai, the jail's chief controller, have now been suspended.The CM said that the CID had been given the task to identify the people who made calls to the inmates and who kept in touch with the criminals inside the jails. "All call records will be examined by the CID. We have full confidence in the CID officers; earlier, they were not allowed to work.""The smuggling of smartphones inside the correctional homes shows anarchy, malpractice and a nexus between the controllers and the inmates. The prisoners are not supposed to use mobiles inside the jails. This nexus existed everywhere and we are cracking down on this racket in all spheres," the CM said."On Thursday evening, we received inputs from the relatives of prisoners that mobile phones are being used extensively in Presidency jail. A nexus between the jail authority and notorious criminals was behind this racket. There might have been support from the previous govt, or there might have been callousness," Adhikari said.The CM said that there are such allegations from Dum Dum Central Correctional Home, as well as from Berhampore Central Correctional Home, and from numerous other such places. "We want to bring to public knowledge that criminals across the state are continuing their networks even inside jails with the help of a section of the officials. It seems to us that this practice is not a matter of a single day, it has been going on for years. A nexus from bottom to top, these illegal activities were going on for years. So, we have started a crackdown," Adhikari said.