BANEPA, March 5: Inmates at the Kavre District Jail have raised voice against utter high handedness of some of the 'leader' inmates. For internal management of jail, jailer appoints leader and assistant leaders from among the inmates. These leaders then pick few others for assisting them, eventually forming a group. According to the inmates, the entire group has been hard on other inmates.
Though this kind of dissatisfaction has been expressed much earlier, inmates launched formal protest against the leader group's high handedness. On Monday, they detained all the major member leaders of the group for 10 hours. Following the development, the district police chief and CDO had reached the jail. However, the enraged inmates did not cooperate. They had locked the jail from inside not letting anyone in. It was only after few hours of wait, the visitors were able to enter.
“On one hand, they keep way more inmates than they should keep here. The prison does even have space to stand, let alone sleep well. We are squeezed like rats. On the other hand, those leaders do whatever they want. We are fed up,” the protestors said. “We don't want those leaders in this prison. We have been demanding their transfer,” the inmates stated.
The inmates did not even let journalists inside the prison and answered questions from within the prison. “We will not open the gate until our demands are fulfilled,” they had insisted.
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The protesting inmates claimed that the leaders not only show over high handedness in the jail but also influence the decisions of the jailer.
“If you have power, you can do anything. If you are powerless, they won't even ask you food. The government gives us money, per head. But we can't save anything because of the high cost. More over the serve us rotten food,” they lamented.
Most of the inmates complained about food quality. Even though they pay for additional food items, they claim that they are sold substandard commodities.
Inmates launched formal protest against the leader inmates group's high handedness within the prison and demanding their transfer from there.
Though they did not let him in for long, the inmates had expressed anger in front of the CDO of Kavre, Shiva Prasad Simkhada. They urged him to monitor jail properly. “If you monitor things, everything will be alright. Or else, we have to suffer like this,” they fumed.
After sharing their plight, they named the inmate leaders with whose behavior they were not happy. The jail administration has given the responsibility of internal management to Arjun Thapa Magar, inmates Dipak Thakuri, Suraj Thapa, Jaysingh Tamang, Suresh Balami, Madhukar Mahat and Kumar Karki.
Mahesh Kumar Pokharel, jailer of the prison assured that the prison would respond to the concerns of the inmates. “Yes, we give certain responsibilities to some of the inmates. But they should not show unnecessary high handedness,” he said.
CDO Simkhada assured thorough investigation into the matter and pledged to take necessary actions against those found guilty.
The prison has a capacity of 75 inmates but 250 inmates are serving their terms in it.
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