‘Hello... I am calling from jail, but I am not running my gang’
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A convicted felon calls up television channels offering them interviews from inside his prison cell, and insists to them that he couldn’t have called his associates to conduct criminal activities because he is in prison! Bethangere Shankara, whose gang of rowdies barged into a farmer’s house on the outskirts of the city and demanded ‘protection money’ and went on a rampage, told the TV channels that he had nothing to do with the incident and was not directing his men. He said the rowdies were misusing his name.
But his calls — from inside Hindalaga Central Prison in Belgaum — only brought home, once again, the reality inside jails in the state. For a price, almost anything is available. As his blatant violation of prison rules became apparent, prison officials who had been caught on the wrong foot, were said to be doing everything to cover up their tracks. Sources in the Prisons department said, Hindalaga officials were — taking a leaf out of Shankara’s book! — trying to verify whether it was Shankara who made the calls to the TV channels or an imposter.
The Prisons department is looking into records of all calls that originated from inside the jail. The sources said that a departmental inquiry would be held against Hindalaga officials if calls were indeed made from inside the jail. A prison official at Parappana Agrahara jail in Bengaluru said cell phone jammers had been installed inside the prison but prisoners managed to find a spot the jammers didn’t cover. He expressed surprise that even as periodic ‘operation jail clean’ drives yield cell phones, SIM cards, even drugs, prisoners somehow manage to get fresh supplies each time.
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