Electric fencing and CCTV cameras in four major prisons, periodic transfer of prison staff, and strengthening “intelligence” networks within – these are some of the major security measures the Kerala government is planning after the jailbreak of a rape convict has allegedly exposed chinks in system.
The decisions were taken at a high-level meeting that Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan chaired Saturday, and comes a day after Govindachamy, a Tamil Nadu native who was undergoing life imprisonment in a 2011 case of rape of a young woman in a moving train, escaped after scaling the walls of the Kannur central prison. Although he was eventually captured, the incident has left the establishment red-faced.
In a statement it issued, the Chief Minister’s Office said the jailbreak was one of “serious concern” and that it was decided that steps had to be taken after a thorough meeting. Apart from electric fencing and CCTVs, the video conferencing system would be strengthened, facilities for prisoners would be improved and all prison employees who had completed five years would be transferred.
Apart from the ongoing jail departmental and police probes, the chief minister ordered that a two-member team of former DGP Jacob Punnose and retired high court judge C N Ramachandran Nair will also look into the jailbreak.
According to the police, Govindachamy broke out of his cell at 1.15 am and scaled a 7.5-metre-high compound wall at 5 am, with the police eventually finding him in an empty well in an abandoned building near the city.
The 2011 assault on the young woman, an employee at a shopping mall in Kochi, had shocked the state with its brutality. The victim, who had been pushed out of a running train, eventually died of her injuries.
In 2012, a trial court sentenced Govindachamy, who had been previously convicted in eight cases in Tamil Nadu, to death. The Kerala High Court had upheld the sentence but in 2016, the Supreme Court dropped the murder charge against him and commuted his sentence to seven years in prison, although it upheld the trial court’s life sentence for rape.
