Tihar Jail Needs A Shake Up After Yasin Malik Security Lapse
Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.
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By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2023-07-22 13:39:06
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Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator.
View all posts by this Author
In what was a huge security lapse that once again exposed that everything is wrong at Tihar jail, Jammu & Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) chief Yasin Malik, who is serving a life term for his conviction in a terror funding case, made a personal appearance in the high-security Supreme Court in another case although the court had not granted him permission for the same.
It caught everyone by surprise and the judges were not impressed. They categorically denied having given permission to Malik to appear in person to argue his case when the matter was raised by the solicitor general Tushar Mehta. That immediately set alarm bells ringing about a security lapse at Tihar and an inquiry was ordered.
Based on a preliminary inquiry report, the Tihar jail authorities have suspended four officials - one deputy superintendent, two assistant superintendent and one head warder. Detailed inquiry is being conducted and more heads are set to roll once the report comes in. It is clear that either fake papers were submitted (in which case either the prison staff is guilty of dereliction of duty for not checking them properly or the rules are not tight enough to call for the same) or palms were greased to cause this huge lapse and the attendant embarrassment.
But it is absolutely surprising that this happened. For any person to leave jail to appear in court, an order of the Supreme Court granting them the permission for personal appearance is a must. In case of Malik, even with this order, there would have been other permissions and security clearances would have been necessary from people higher-up in the prison hierarchy than a mere deputy superintendent. How all this was managed, or bypassed, to allow Malik to appear in the Supreme Court may, or may not, be found out in the probe. But it does point to systemic rot in Tihar jail. The authorities must conduct a thorough investigation that covers more than the lapses in this particular incident and tighten rules so such things do not happen again.
