JOIN USThe Union Home Ministry has asked the states to segregate terror-accused and convicts from other prisoners by lodging them in separate prisons outside the city limits.
The Ministry has shot off a letter to states for adoption of measures to be taken by them to improve security of jails and decongest it.
Kumar Alok, Joint Secretary in Home Ministry, said security and living condition inside jails requires continued attention from all stakeholders and certain measures need to be taken.
There is an "immediate need to decongest the jails by setting up security prison for terror accused outside the city. If that is not feasible, then very high risk prisoners and other under trial prisoners under the category of terrorist/security suspects are required to be segregated effectively from the ordinary prisoners within the complex of central and district jails."
In 2010, while mooting the idea, Amit Shah, now BJP chief and then home minister of Gujarat, had said, “With both the terror convicts and those convicted under CrPc sharing the same prison, there is a chance that these convicts could become potential sleeper cells for terror groups.”
An year earlier, a Supreme Court bench headed by then Chief Justice K G Bal Krishnan and Justice P Sathasivam, who later became Chief Justice of India, suggested the setting up of a separate jail for terrorists, militants and those involved in federal crimes.