Seven mobile phones and a huge quantity of prohibited material, including cigarettes and tobacco products, were seized from the high-security Amritsar Central Jail complex on Wednesday.
The recovery of the material, found abandoned inside the jail premises, once again highlighted the persistent menace of smuggling and throwing contraband and mobile phones into prisons.
Jail Superintendent Sukhdev Singh said that during a search operation, officials recovered seven abandoned mobile phones, including two touchscreen smartphones and five keypad phones. Besides, two headphones, four chargers, two data cables and one adapter were also seized.
The jail authorities further recovered 187 bundles of bidis, cigarette packets, tobacco products, two packets of chaini-kheni, 67 paper smoke rolls, nine packets of adhesive solution and five heating springs, all of which are prohibited inside prisons.
Sources said the recovery once again exposed the growing challenge faced by jail authorities in curbing the smuggling of banned material into prisons. In several cases, contraband articles are allegedly thrown over the jail walls by accomplices of inmates, as the Amritsar Central Jail is located in the densely populated Fatehpur area. Some items are also suspected to have been smuggled in through other illegal channels, while the involvement of insiders cannot be ruled out.
The police said a case has been registered under relevant sections of the Prisons Act against unidentified persons in connection with the seizure.
