India: Undertrial prisoner escapes a Rajasthan jail by scaling 20-ft wall using CCTV cables

A 35-year-old undertrial prisoner, accused of murdering his wife fled from a prison in western India's Rajasthan. The prisoner had been lodged in the Baran district jail since February 25.

The prisoner named Janved escaped by scaling a 20-foot-high electric fence using cables, according to jail officials. Kishan Chand Meena, the jailor of the Baran district jail informed that Janved used a cable of CCTV cameras as a rope to scale the fencing and chart his escape.

The police said it is highly likely that the accused escaped using a hole in the fencing. Janved fled the jail premises on Wednesday afternoon and the incident did not come to light till later in the evening.

"The complete count of prisoners was done late last night. Later, a prisoner named Janved escaped by scaling the wall. The authorities have been informed about the matter. A case is being registered and a search is on for him,” said the jail-in-charge.

This is not the first instance when prisoners have escaped a Rajasthani jail. In June last year, three undertrial prisoners, who were under judicial custody escaped from the Banswara district jail using blankets.

"They jumped an inner boundary wall 12 feet tall...then the outer wall of 20 feet with the help of a rope they made with blankets. They made a hole in the wall of the cell," said the jailer.

According to National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data, more than three-fourths of jail inmates in India are undertrial prisoners. In 2021, of the 554,034 prisoners, 427,165, or 77 per cent were undertrials. It was a 15 per cent increase from the numbers noted in 2020.

District jails had the lion's share of the undertrial prison inmates population, accounting for 51.5 per cent of the total.