SAD asks CM to sack Sukhjinder Randhawa and cleanse jails
Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) on Wednesday said after the NCRB Report-2019 rating Punjab jails with having the highest cases of abuse besides jail escapes and unnatural deaths, chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh should sack Jails minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa immediately and take steps to cleanse the jail system in the State.
Senior leader Maheshinder Singh Grewal said that the NCRB report had only asserted what was common knowledge – that Punjab jails were the worst run in the country and were a den for gangsters. He said the report had highlighted that the State had the highest cases of human rights abuses besides being in the top three categories with regard to jail escape, parole jump, custodial suicide and unnatural deaths.
“The report itself is enough reason for Sukhjinder Randhawa to submit his resignation on moral grounds but seeing his insistence to stick on his chair it is incumbent on the chief minister to take action against him and improve jail administration immediately”.
Maheshinder Grewal said the year 2019, which was analyzed by the Report, had witnessed gangsters operating their mafias from the jail with official patronage.
“Dreaded gangster Jaggu Bhagwanpuria, who enjoyed the patronage of the Jails minister, was accused of running extortion rackets from the jail premises by police officers themselves, but no action was taken in the matter. Jaggu was given access to mobile phones and other comforts brazenly flouting all norms. He even executing attacks from inside the jail but no action was taken against him”.
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Grewal said besides this there was a case of a jailbreak in Amritsar even as a prison inmate was killed in the Ludhiana central jail in indiscriminate police firing when the jail administration lost control of the jail. “No independent probe was ordered into any of the two incidents”.
-PTC News
