Scanner installed at Central Prison
A rapid scanner costing Rs. 18 lakh to check the entry of banned items has become functional at the Coimbatore Central Prison.According to prison sources, the Coimbatore Central Prison is considered a high security prison since it accommodated 166 undertrials in the Coimbatore serial blasts case.The prison with a sanctioned accommodation of 2,208 (including the separate enclosure for women) had a population of 2,521 prisoners.Visitors coming to meet the prisoners were likely to bring packets containing eatables. Till now the packets were checked casually and the chances of banned items being concealed inside it could have gone unnoticed. Similarly, remand and undertrial prisoners were subjected to manual frisking when they returned after attending courts.The prison security staff were also checked. Subjecting so many people to manual frisking was not only laborious but also time-consuming. In some cases, such checkings were found to be not foolproof.Rule 298 of the Tamil Prison Manual prohibited the entry of nearly 20 items such as materials that could be used as weapons, SIM card, narcotic substances and unauthorised money.
The prison administration had been facing the flak whenever there were reports of money, ganja and SIM cards getting smuggled into the prison.There had been instances of the prison security staff being dealt with severely when they were found in possession of banned items.Coimbatore Central Prison was the first to get the rapid scanner.The machine was capable of scanning and showing the accurate picture of the article, both organic and inorganic, concealed inside anything, thus bringing in a fool-proof mechanism.The machine after trial runs was put into operation recently under the supervision of the Deputy Inspector-General of Prisons, Coimbatore Range, P. Munivelu, and the Superintendent of Prisons, S. Rajendran.
