Home minister RR Patil announced on Monday that his department will investigate the administrative lapses at Arthur Road jail and action would be taken against guilty officials. Patil said that special privileges, if any, given to criminals will be immediately withdrawn.
Minister of state for home Ramesh Bagwe had admitted in an interview to a Marathi newspaper that prison officials were helping gangsters get special privileges in the jail. Bagwe visited the Arthur Road jail on Saturday after underworld don Abu Salem was attacked by Dawood Ibrahim man Mustafa Dossa. Bagwe found out that Salem’s toilet was as posh as a five-star hotel toilet, and there were tiffins filled with home-made food and huge stock of fruits inside Dossa’s barrack.
Leader of opposition Eknath Khadse raised the issue in the assembly through an adjournment notice and said the issue was
a very serious one. He even demanded a committee of MLAs to probe the matter.
“A team of MLAs from both, the ruling and opposition side, will visit the Arthur Road jail to inspect the management inside the jail. I will personally accompany the members on the visit,” said Patil.
Meanwhile, the Mumbai crime branch, which is investigating the incident where Dossa attacked Salem, plan to approach the special Terrorist Activities and Disruptive Activities (TADA) court to procure a no-objection for getting Dossa’s custody. “Dossa’s custodial interrogation will prove if his act was due to an immediate provocation or whether it was a planned attack,” said an official.
