<p>A suicide and a hunger strike recently at Lucknow Jail reflect unrest among inmates in overcrowded Uttar Pradesh prisons, particularly over `negligent' doctors and poor medical facilities. <br /><br /></p>.<p>An inmate, Ramdas, who had been suffering from a fungal infection, committed suicide at the Lucknow district jail on Sunday, allegedly after being refused medicine by a `tipsy' prison doctor.<br /><br />About 500 inmates of the Lucknow jail went on a day-long hunger strike on Monday to protest against lack of medical facilities and poor quality of food.<br /><br />While the jail administration called the Ramdas case a suicide, family members alleged he was killed.<br /><br />Recently, a seriously ill prisoner died in Mau district jail as he could not be shifted to the prison hospital due to the absence of guards.<br /><br />UP minister of state for jails Rampal Rajvanshi visited the Lucknow district jail on Monday – and faced inmates who alleged that prison doctors are drunk almost all the time, even while seeing patients.<br /><br />The minister assured them that their complaint will be thoroughly investigated and the guilty doctors punished.<br /><br />All 62 jails in the state are overcrowded. There are around 84,000 prisoners in these jails as against their capacity of 46,000, said a jail official.<br /><br />About 2,000 posts of jail guards have been lying vacant for several years.<br /><br />Over 500 inmates have either committed suicide or died under mysterious circumstances in the state jails in the past few years.<br /><br />As many as 23 prisoners died in the past 19 months in the Lucknow district jail alone.<br />The jails have also witnessed scale violence in the past few months. In one such violent clash prisoners had attacked a jailer in Mau, and one inmate was killed.<br /><br />The newly-appointed jail minister Raghuraj Pratap Singh alias Raja Bhaiya, who himself has been in the jail for several months, has vowed to improve the condition of jails in the state.<br /><br />Recently he ordered installation of water coolers to give respite to the inmates in the hot summer season.<br /></p>
<p>A suicide and a hunger strike recently at Lucknow Jail reflect unrest among inmates in overcrowded Uttar Pradesh prisons, particularly over `negligent' doctors and poor medical facilities. <br /><br /></p>.<p>An inmate, Ramdas, who had been suffering from a fungal infection, committed suicide at the Lucknow district jail on Sunday, allegedly after being refused medicine by a `tipsy' prison doctor.<br /><br />About 500 inmates of the Lucknow jail went on a day-long hunger strike on Monday to protest against lack of medical facilities and poor quality of food.<br /><br />While the jail administration called the Ramdas case a suicide, family members alleged he was killed.<br /><br />Recently, a seriously ill prisoner died in Mau district jail as he could not be shifted to the prison hospital due to the absence of guards.<br /><br />UP minister of state for jails Rampal Rajvanshi visited the Lucknow district jail on Monday – and faced inmates who alleged that prison doctors are drunk almost all the time, even while seeing patients.<br /><br />The minister assured them that their complaint will be thoroughly investigated and the guilty doctors punished.<br /><br />All 62 jails in the state are overcrowded. There are around 84,000 prisoners in these jails as against their capacity of 46,000, said a jail official.<br /><br />About 2,000 posts of jail guards have been lying vacant for several years.<br /><br />Over 500 inmates have either committed suicide or died under mysterious circumstances in the state jails in the past few years.<br /><br />As many as 23 prisoners died in the past 19 months in the Lucknow district jail alone.<br />The jails have also witnessed scale violence in the past few months. In one such violent clash prisoners had attacked a jailer in Mau, and one inmate was killed.<br /><br />The newly-appointed jail minister Raghuraj Pratap Singh alias Raja Bhaiya, who himself has been in the jail for several months, has vowed to improve the condition of jails in the state.<br /><br />Recently he ordered installation of water coolers to give respite to the inmates in the hot summer season.<br /></p>