Inmates tortured in UP jail for complaining about dance by bar girls

Their only fault was that they had dared to lodge a complaint against senior officials of the district jail after a dance performance inside the prison by bar girls.

Irked by the inmates' complaint, the officials of the jail in Uttar Pradesh's Hamirpur district, about 200 km from here, allegedly brutally tortured them.

The matter came to light after a video showing thrashing of the inmates with the belt by the jail guards went viral on the social media on Tuesday.

The video shows two jail guards hitting the prisoners with the belt. It also shows the inmates holding their ears from between their legs (a kind of punishment in which one is asked to take a position resembling that of a rooster).

Sources said that earlier a video showing the bar girls dancing at a programme inside the Hamirpur district jail had also gone viral on the social networking sites. The jail officials suspected that some inmates had recorded the video and handed it over to the jail doctor, who had uploaded it on social media.

Jail officials had then claimed that the male inmates clad in women's clothes had performed the dance programmes.

Jail superintendent Hari Singh said that the authenticity of the video would be ascertained before taking any action.

Minister for Prisons Jai Kumar Singh said that the video would be probed and stern action would be taken against those responsible if it was found to be authentic.