Bengal: Coronavirus Combat Measures Spark Riots In Kolkata Prison; One Dead, Many Injured 

A set of three measures to prevent spread of the Coronavirus sparked a riot inside Kolkata’s Dum Dum Central Correctional Home on Saturday, leading to one undertrial’s death in police firing.

Nearly 30 people, including jail staffers and policemen, were seriously injured in the riots and have been admitted to hospital. The injured include ADG (Prisons) Arun Gupta and ADG (CID) S.N. Gupta.

The three triggers for the riots by prisons were:

1. Suspension of bi-weekly visits by family members of prisoners till 31 March;
2. The decision by courts to hear only urgent matters which meant hearing of cases and bail petitions of undertrials would be delayed; and,
3. Government’s decision to offer 15-day special parole to lifers with certified good conduct who had already spent 10 years or more in prison in order to free some cells that would be converted to ‘isolation cells’ for prisoners suspected of Covid-19 infection.

Trouble started around 10.30 am on Saturday when a group of prisoners started demanding hand sanitizers and masks. They started arguing with jail staffers.

Soon, other prisoners joined in and started demanding that the weekend visits by their family members be allowed. Another group of prisoners started objecting to the grant of parole to those serving life-sentences.

A scuffle then broke out between undetrials and a section of convicts who were asked by jail wardens to intervene and restore order. The undertrials attacked lifers in cells of Ward 9 of the jail.

Within minutes, it became a free-for-all and the jail staff and police found themselves to be severely outnumbered. Within an hour, the prisoners had taken over the entire prison, which houses some 2,500 undertrials and convicts and is Bengal’s largest correctional facility.

The prisoners, armed with bricks, axes, rods and sticks, ransacked the canteen and set it on fire before storming the jail administration block and torching the jailer’s cabin.

Some of the prisoners tried to breach the prison wall while another group of prisoners tried to break open the gate between the main prison yard and the jailer’s office.

Police reinforcements arrived after noon and tried to restore order. But the prisoners fought pitched battles with policemen, leading to the latter firing teargas canisters.

When that did not deter the prisoners from trying to break open the prison gates, the cops opened fire that led to the death of Kamlesh Yadav, a 28-year-old undertrial who was facing robbery charges.

But even after the police firing, the prisoners did not stop. They regrouped inside the prison, set LPG cylinders on fire and continued hurling bricks at the police.

More police reinforcements comprising rapid action force (RAF) and personnel from Bengal Police’s combat battalions were sent in. They could restore order only around 3 pm.

But trouble broke out again around 4.30 pm, leading to the police firing a few more rounds in the air and firing tear gas shells. It was only after dusk that a tenuous calm prevailed.

A few prisoners were caught trying to sneak out of the prison taking advantage of the situation. Many were injured while trying to breach the 20-foot prison walls.

Ten fire tenders were deployed to douse the blaze while state food minister Jyotipriyo Mullick went to the prison to help in initiating a dialogue with the riotous prisoners.