Amid reports that VIP facilities, including an LCD TV, were being provided to Bibi Jagir Kaur, lodged in Theh Kanjla Jail in Kapurthala in connection with the abduction case of her daughter, a top Punjab Prisons official on Tuesday ordered an inquiry into it.
Punjab DGP (Prisons) Shashi Kant also insisted that rules will be followed in the case.
“I have ordered an inquiry and deputed an IG rank officer to conduct the probe. He will visit the jail and go into all the reports (talk of VIP treatment to Kaur). I don’t tolerate any non-sensical stuff and we don’t want any adverse publicity. Rules will have to be followed,” Mr. Kant said.
Mr. Kant further said that he had also shot off a letter to Kapurthala jail superintendent, S P Khanna, asking him to strictly follow the rules.
“My one-line instruction to him was that rules have to be observed. I am also sending a team for inspection to Kapurthala Jail. I have asked the Jail superintendent that rules have to be observed at all costs,” Mr. Kant said.
Asked to comment on reports that a 32-inch LCD TV and DTH dish antenna was installed in the jail yesterday, Mr. Kant said the Jail Superintendent had told him that the article had not made its way inside the complex where prisoners are lodged.
“The Jail superintendent said the TV could have been purchased by someone living in the residential complex inside the jail complex. The outer gate of the jail is common and besides the Superintendent, Deputy Superintendent there are doctors and other staff who live in the residential quarters in the complex. It could have been for any of them,” he said.
When his attention was drawn to media reports that suggested that there was beeline of visitors who wanted to meet 57-year-old Kaur, a SAD MLA who resigned as Punjab Cabinet Minister last week following her conviction, Mr. Kant said according to jail rules, friends and relatives can meet her.
“There is no specified number in jail manuals,” he said when asked how many people can meet her in a day.
Though acquitted of murder charge, the special CBI court in Patiala on Friday convicted Bibi Jagir Kaur of abducting, illegally confining and forcibly causing abortion of her daughter, Harpreet Kaur, almost 12 years ago.
