Govindachamy's escape exposes vulnerabilities of State prisons

The Hindu

2 days ago

Just before heading out for work on Friday morning, E. Vinoj Kumar, a private finance company employee of Kannur, quickly checked the WhatsApp messages on his mobile phone. Govindachamy escaped from the Kannur Central Prison, read a message.
The image stopped Vinoj in his tracks. Like many others in Kerala, he vividly remembered the case and the outrage it had triggered.
Making a mental note of the message, he hurriedly left for work.
A few moments later, while moving along Pamban Madhavan Road, near Talap, he slowed down his vehicle to give way to a speeding bus. Just then, a man walked towards him, partly blocking the road. Something about the man made Vinoj look again.
'He was a lean fellow, wearing a white shirt and black trousers, and had one of his hands pushed under a bundle of cloth that he was carrying on his head,' Vinoj recalls.
He sported a beard, unlike the image of the prisoner which was circulated on social media. Yet, something rang in his mind. He shared his doubts about the identity of the man with an autorickshaw driver whom he met on the road.
'I told him that the man looked like Govindachamy. The man walked faster as we approached him,' recollects Vinoj.
As the autorickshaw driver attempted to strike up a conversation with the man, he didn't respond. He took to his heels when his name was called out. As he fled the scene, his amputated hand was revealed, which confirmed their suspicion. It was the life convict Govindachamy.
Vinoj wasted no time in alerting the police.
As the police were searching the area for the convict, M. Unnikrishnan, a government employee, reached his office at Talap for the day's work.
'One of my colleagues had alerted me about the news that the jailbird was last seen in the Talap area. There are a few vacant plots next to our office building, which, I felt, could serve as hiding places for criminals,' Unnikrishnan says.
He ventured out to inspect the plots before the police team reached the area. Just to make sure, he threw a casual look into a well located in his office compound. To his shock, he saw Govindachamy trying to remain immersed in the water to escape the police.
Ignoring the threats of the criminal, Unnikrishnan raised the alarm. In no time, the police reached the area and pulled the convict out of the well, thus ending the high-voltage prison escape that kept the State in the throes of tension for hours.
Though the convict had jumped jail in the early hours of the day, his absence was noticed only a few hours later during the morning roll call. The discovery of a makeshift rope hanging from the outer wall of the jail, which he used for escaping, confirmed the suspicion.
P. Nidhinraj, District Police Chief (Kannur City), described the escape as a 'well-planned operation.' Investigation revealed that the outlaw had collected clothes of remand prisoners to make a rope, used the abandoned water drums to scale walls. He had modified his dietary practices to lose weight and squeeze himself through narrow cell door rods. A hacksaw blade is suspected to have been used to cut through the iron bars of his cell in Block 10, reserved for high-risk inmates.
The police believe that he slipped out of his cell around 1 a.m. and scaled three walls using the rope and the water drums. After spending around three hours on the jail compound, he is believed to have cleared the outer compound wall by 4.30 a.m. A defunct electric fence made his escape an easy affair, suspect police officers.
A senior prison officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, says the jail staff had ignored the several 'tell-tale signs', including the altered behaviour and appearance of the prisoner, which, if noticed, would have prevented the escape.
For one, Govindachamy had begun growing beard, which should have triggered suspicion in the minds of diligent officers. Moreover, his drastic dietary changes and noticeable weight loss also surprisingly went unnoticed, he says.
The glaring lapses in the monitoring and surveillance system in the prison did not stop there. The empty drums on the jail premises and the easily accessible loose materials such as cloths, which the convict made use of for scaling the wall, were neither cleared nor flagged, despite routine patrols. Such 'tools' could be hoarded by prisoners looking for an opportune moment to escape, he says.
Ashokan Arippa, a former Superintendent of the Kannur Central Prison, blames it on the security lapses and dereliction of duty of the jail officers concerned.
'A better vigilance and monitoring of the prisoners would have averted the incident. Most of the surveillance devices installed in the jail, including the CCTV cameras, were either non-functional or not pressed into service, which helped the convict slip out of the prison unnoticed,' he says.
But Govindachamy's escape, observers say, is merely a symptom of a deeper institutional malaise. It has exposed the vulnerabilities of the prison system across the State, they say.
The electric fencing at the Kannur Central Prison has been non-functional for nearly three years, a detail Govindachamy and others might have noticed. Only the Viyyur Central Prison and the adjacent High Security Prison at present have operational electric fencing. Many of Kerala's prisons, some built during British rule, are ageing relics in dire need of modernisation, points out a senior functionary of the Prisons department.
T.P. Senkumar, former Director General of Prisons and Correctional Services, feels that most of the correctional facilities are unfit to be called prisons. 'Inmates are kept in small, poorly ventilated cells, often without fans. Surviving the summer months is a struggle.'
Overcrowding has only worsened the situation.
The average occupancy rate in Kerala's prisons is around 135%, higher than the national average of 131%. Official figures show 10,605 inmates are crammed into 57 prisons designed to hold only 7,828. The situation is dire in key facilities, including the central prisons at Poojappura, Viyyur, and Kannur, and the district jails in Ernakulam and Kottayam.
The Block 10 at the Kannur Central Prison, in which Govindachamy has been lodged, is meant for solitary confinement. However, the authorities have put two inmates each in the 6 ft x 6 ft cell.
The staff strength of the Kerala Prisons and Correctional Services has not grown proportionally to the number of inmates. The force has 2,289 personnel against a sanctioned strength of 2,415. Given the present number of inmates, it would require at least 3,600 employees to ensure effective round-the-clock surveillance and proper administration of jails, according to department officials.
To plug the gap, prison authorities have increasingly turned to workers hired on a daily wage basis, a trend former Director General of Prisons and Correctional Services Alexander Jacob warns is fraught with risk.
'Contract workers are not bound by any service rules and are vulnerable to outside influence. This could open the door to corruption and resultant security lapses,' he cautions.
Compounding these issues are bureaucratic delays and inadequate funding for the department. Crucial surveillance facilities like CCTV cameras and electric fences lie defunct due to the lack of annual maintenance contracts. Despite repeated reminders, the facilities have not been made operational, say department sources.
'During the 13th Finance Commission, we secured ₹154 crore for the purpose. Since then, no proposals have been submitted, leading to a complete funding drought over the next two Finance Commissions.'
Besides the poor infrastructure facilities, political interference too has long plagued Kerala's prison system, say those familiar with the jail system.
Senkumar alleges that certain prisons, especially Kannur, are seen as strongholds of some political parties. 'The Kannur Central Prison is effectively under the control of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Democratic Front. Only politically aligned officers are appointed there. The jail advisory committees, often composed of influential politicians, some with serious criminal charges, exert disproportionate influence on jail governance,' he alleges.
Ashokan Arippa concurs: 'Political pressure demoralises staff. Officers work in fear of repercussions.'
However, P. Jayarajan, a member of the Kannur Jail Advisory Committee and a State committee member of the CPI(M), dismisses the allegations as politically motivated.
'It's a propaganda of the anti-Left forces and the right-wing media. Let us not forget the escape of 'Ripper' Jayanandan, a death row prisoner, from the Poojappura Central Prison in 2013 when the Congress-led United Democratic Front government was in power,' he counters.
He also quickly points out that the advisory panels have no role in the daily affairs of the prison. 'The panel's role is limited to recommending the premature release of convicts.'
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, who also holds the Home portfolio, has ordered a special investigation headed by former Kerala High Court Judge C.N. Ramachandran Nair and former State Police Chief Jacob Punnoose.
Ramachandran Nair acknowledges the need for prison-specific reforms in the State. 'Each prison has unique shortcomings and issues to address. While overcrowding has remained a persistent issue, the situation has been exacerbated by the rising number of crimes, particularly drug-related offences.'
Balram Kumar Upadhyay, Director General of Prisons and Correctional Services, says the demand for establishing more jails and enhancing the infrastructure facilities in existing ones will be examined soon.
While the jailbreak has put the jail department in a bad light, it has also served as a wake-up call for the State government to introduce correctional measures in the functioning of the Prisons and Correctional Services of the State.