Authorities at the Fatehpur-based Amritsar Central Jail on Thursday recovered 13 mobile phones and nine SIM cards from inmates, leading to the registration of a case under Sections 42 and 52-A of the Prisons Act.
The recovery was made during a search operation conducted inside the jail barracks. The seized items included four touchscreen smartphones and nine keypad phones of various brands.
Following the recovery, an FIR was registered against 11 inmates identified as Kanwardeep Singh, Ravi Singh, Rajan Sethi, Sahildeep Singh, Gurvinder Singh, Ravinder Singh, Jaspinder Singh, Jagdeep Singh, Rohit Arora, Gursahilpreet Singh and Makhan Singh, all residents of different districts across Punjab.
The complaint was lodged by Assistant Jail Superintendent Naresh Pal. The police have launched an investigation to determine how the prohibited items were smuggled into the prison premises.
The accused will be brought on production warrants for arrest in the fresh case, while investigators will also probe how the banned material was sneaked into the jail.
Throwing packets over prison walls continues to be one of the most common methods used to smuggle mobile phones into jails, though the involvement of insiders has also surfaced on several occasions. The Punjab Government had initiated multiple projects, including the installation of signal jammers and AI-based surveillance cameras, but these measures are yet to be fully implemented.