A surprise raid by the Coimbatore City Police in Coimbatore Central Prison in the small hours of Saturday yielded a mobile phone, ganja, knives and even compact disks.
According to the city police, following information that the inmates – remand prisoners, under trials and convicts – were in procession of things not permitted and some of them could have been smuggled inside with the connivance of the staff there, City Police Commissioner A.K. Viswanathan ordered a raid.
Around 215 police personnel led by Deputy Commissioners T. Senthil Kumar and P. Saminathan, assembled at the Police Commissionerate around 3 a.m., for the operation. The personnel included 12 inspectors, 25 sub inspectors and also men from the Armed Reserve.
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After a briefing, they moved into the prison an hour later, after asking the warden and staff to move to the reception area.
In the search that went on till 10 a.m., the police seized Rs. 7,290 in cash, 10 knives, 13 gm ganja, a mobile phone, five SIM (subscriber identity module) cards, three memory cards, two mobile phone batteries, an ear phone, 15 lighters, 14 compact disks, two boxes of matches, an iron rod measuring half-a-foot, a tester, five pen-torch batteries, five nails, two pairs of scissors and a packet of syringes as well.
The police said that they were in the process of preparing a report and presenting the same to the Superintendent of Prison, who is at liberty to lodge a complaint with the Race Course police.
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Though search and seizures are regular at the prison, it is only now that the city police had conducted such a massive search operation.
Superintendent of Prison S. Rajendran said that the police have handed over the list of items recovered and also briefed him about the operation.
He will launch an inquiry to ascertain how such items were in possession of the inmates and if the smuggling of the items had the connivance of the prison staff.