In the wake of the jail break by eight SIMI activists in Bhopal, the Gujarat Police has conducted a major search operation at Sabarmati Central jail here to review its security measures which houses over 75 prisoners alleged to be SIMI and Indian Mujahideen activists.
Various teams of Anti Terrorist Squad (ATS) along with city crime branch and Special Operations Group (SOG), led by ATS Superintendent Himanshu Shukla, visited the Central prison late Monday night to acquire first hand information of the overall security arrangements.
As many as 78 prisoners, accused in the 2008 Ahmedabad serial blast case and alleged to be associated with SIMI or Indian Mujahideen, are currently lodged in a special high security area of the jail.
"Following the incident of jail break by SIMI activists in Bhopal, officials of ATS, crime branch and SOG have visited Sabarmati jail to supervise the overall security arrangements," Assistant Commissioner of Police, city SOG, BC Solanki said.
"We have made separate teams led by 18 police inspectors to search each and every barrack of the jail. We have also checked if various security systems, such as alarms and CCTV cameras are functional. Nothing suspicious has been found from any prisoner during the search," he added.
Sharing details of the enhanced security set up at the jail, senior jailor H M Shah told reporters that around 100 armed personnel from State Reserve Police (SRP) are doing round the clock patrolling in the jail. "Apart from our staff, around 100 SRP jawans were deployed here some time back to keep a close watch on each and every movement," Shah said. In the 2008 terror attack, 21 serial blasts had rocked the city on July 26 and claimed 56 lives while hundreds were severely injured.
Gujarat police has so far charge-sheeted 100 people in the case, of which, 78 are behind bars here, while remaining are still absconding. Notably, security at Sabarmati jail has been a cause of concern for authorities after some of the accused attempted to escape from jail in February 2012 by digging a 218-feet long tunnel inside barrack no. 4. Following the jail-escape bid, all the blast accused were shifted to high-security barracks.