Kerala jailbreak: Notorious criminal's slip from prison raises many eyebrows and questions about security

Thiruvananthapuram: The jailbreak of a notorious criminal undergoing life term for the brutal rape that led to the death of a 23-year-old woman train passenger in Kerala has rocked the state on Friday. He was nabbed by the police from a well of a vacant building within hours.

Tamil Nadu native Govindachamy, who is undergoing life term in the rape and murder of a woman travelling in train at Thrissur in 2011, escaped from the Kannur central prison.

Despite his physical deformity of having his left hand amputated, Govindachamy broke the prison cell by cutting the bars using a hacksaw blade and scaled the nearly 25 feet high wall by using dhotis tied together.

Though he escaped by around 4 am, the prison authorities reportedly was alerted at around 6.30 am upon spotting the dhotis tied together.

The local police were swiftly alerted and they swung into action. Information regarding the jail break of the convict in the sensational case was also spread through the media. The incident triggered panic as Govindachamy is a habitual offender allegedly with sexual perversions and was involved in around a dozen crimes in several states.

By around 10 am some local people spotted Govindachamy walking on the around three kilometres away from the prison. As they alerted the police, Govindachamy ran into the premises of a nearby vacant building and hid in a well. The local people also joined the police in the search and traced him.

The incident raised many eyebrows as the Kannur central prison is a high-security jail with features like electric fencing and CCTV surveillance. There were reports that the electric fencing was defunct for many years now.

Four prison officials, including a deputy prison office and three assistant prison officers, were placed under suspension.

Govindachamy was being shifted to another high-security prison in the wake of the jailbreak. He was learnt to be making the preparations for the jailbreak over the last couple of months. He reportedly took permission to grow beard citing allergy while shaving and was taking reduced amount of food. He started cutting a bar of his prison cell almost two weeks back and hid the portion using clothes.

The opposition Congress alleged that CPI(M) activists undergoing sentence in the Kannur prison were controlling the activities in the prison. There was mystery in the jail break as Govindachamy could not scale the huge wall without the help of anyone else owing to his physical deformity.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan convened a meeting of the prisons department officials to review the security of prisons.

Even as Govindachamy was sentenced to death by the trial court and Kerala HC in the rape-murder case that shocked Kerala, the Supreme Court commuted it to life-term citing lack of conclusive evidence for murder. He was involved in over a dozen crimes in various states.