A big chunk of the wall of the women’s ward in the Madhepura district jail, 100 km from the Nepal border, collapsed after Saturday’s earthquake. While Prison department officials concede that the wall collapse was caused by the quake, they still prefer to call it “a minor incident.”
Located about 280 km south of Patna, the Madhepura jail has not been renovated properly since the 1990s.
Till Monday evening, the jail had 299 inmates and they are all locked inside their wards. Clearly, the next big tremor would endanger many lives. Realising this, the authorities have decided to hand over the jailor’s keys to the sentry outside the wards. “In case of a collapse, he can unlock the ward gate [not the main gate],” a senior official said. Local sources told The Hindu that even minor tremors are making inmates jittery.
