It was an outing for a public cause for some of the inmates of Madurai Central Prison on Friday.
By 8 a.m., 25 life convicts assembled at Government Rajaji Hospital (GRH) with police escorts to clean the hospital premises. And, within an hour they showed their involvement in the work — the open space and parking lot near the Dean chamber became spic and span.
“The idea is not just to make them work. We planned to make them mingle with people in some form of social activity. And we thought that the best place to start would be the huge GRH campus, an important public place,” R. Arivudhainambe, Jail Superintendent, Madurai Central Prison, said.
He told The Hindu that life prisoners who had spent about seven or eight years in jail expressed their willingness to take up the work. “Our next plan is to take them out for planting saplings, maintaining parks and clean-up works in public places. Our ADGP J.K.Tripathi has been encouraging the prison officials to keep the inmates motivated and utilise their services in social activities,” he said.
The convicts spent about three hours cleaning outpatient wing, convicts ward and parking areas. S. Vadivel Murugan, Medical Superintendent, GRH, thanked the prison authorities for the gesture and said the convicts would do the clean-up work once a month from now on.
R. Shanmuganathan, retired prison medical officer, who coordinated the drive, said the exercise would bring about a positive change of mind in the convicts.
