Constable caught smuggling drugs into a jail in Maharashtra.

On 10th October, Constable Anil Asaram Jadhav resumed duty for the day at Taloja Central Jail, Navi Mumbai.

He has been serving in this jail for the last five years.

It is a routine practice that all those entering the jail are frisked and their belongings checked before they enter the jail. This is a standard operating procedure which seeks to prevent smuggling of things into the prison.

On this particular day, as Anil was resuming duty, another on-duty constable saw that the tiffin box of Anil had a plastic bag, which had been kept away from inspection.

On checking that bag, it was found that it contained drugs. The total quantity of drugs seized was 123.87 grams of charas worth Rs 8.68 lakh, 2.29 grams of MDMA worth Rs 1 lakh and 40.57 grams of ganja valued at Rs 40,000, along with five rolling papers for smoking ganja.

The total worth of this haul was around 10,00,000 in street value.

Once inside, the value goes up by a factor of 10 to 100. The other day a former prison inmate was telling that an 800 rupee phone costs 1,00,000 inside the prison.

This catch raises some very big questions;

1. How did the constable finance this purchase?
2. From where did he buy the drugs? These are not available easily, thus he must be either part of a syndicate that supplies drugs or knows drug dealers.
3. How long has this been going on?
4. How are the jail inmates paying him?
5. Is he being paid in cash or kind, like they do some 'illegal' assignment for him?
6. If he is being paid in cash, who pays him outside?

Now, the reason being given is that he brought these drugs to supply to drug addicts inside the jail. If that is the case, then why these addicts are not being treated for drug abuse?

All these things become important especially in the light of Lawrence Bishnoi running a 900 member gang from within Sabarmati Jail. 

Is the jail system completely rotten to allow criminals serving their sentence access to modern tools of communication? Lawrence Bishnoi is said to be managing his gang through the use of social media like WhatsApp, Facebook, Telegram, etc.

So, how deep is the rot?

Will any court take suo-motto cognizance of this and initiate a cleanup operation in the jails where they send criminals during trial and after conviction?