Impressed by the correctional and rehabilitation systems implemented in the Indian prisons, Government of Bangladesh is planning to replicate it.
After a visit to two central jails - Cherlapally (Telangana) and Vellore (Tamilnadu), 14-member Bangladeshi delegation led by Colonel Iqbal Hussain, Additional IG Prisons and Shaik Shakil Ahmad, Deputy Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs were quite impressed.
During a visit to India, the officials visited State Institute of Correctional Academy (SICA) at Hyderabad and Academy for Prisoners and Correctional Academy (APCA) at Vellore being run by jails department to understand how the correctional systems are being implemented to bring transformational changes among the prisoners.
The team also visited Jail Museum being run at the district headquarters on Friday and studies its functioning. A painting depicting the old punishment systems in the jails caught their attention. They enquired about the response to ‘Feel the Jail’ system. They asked about how the idea was conceptualised and implemented.
Speaking to reporters after visiting the Jail Museum, Mr. Iqbal Hussain and Mr. Shaik Ahmad said that they have learnt many things during the visit and the correctional and rehabilitation systems very impressive. “Our government has sent us here to study the system in jails. The systems are very good here. We want to even adopt the curriculum being used in these institutes to train the jail officers,” said Mr Iqbal Hussain.
Referring to Jail Museum, the visiting delegation said that they were contemplating to transform the old central jail at Dhaka as about 6,000 prisoners were shifted to newly constructed jail in about 200 acres.
“Our Central Jail at Dhaka was constructed in 54 acres about 200 years ago by Britishers. Now we are thinking on how to transform it as jail museum,” they said.
