Authorities have shifted 150 detainees lodged in various jails in Jammu Kashmir to prisons in Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and New Delhi, reported Deccan Herald on Thursday.
Majority of the militants shifted from Jammu Kashmir were lodged in high-security Kot-Bhalwal jail under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA).
“The jail authorities outside have been asked to segregate Pakistani and Kashmiri militants. Even within the jails of J&K, strict instructions have been issued to segregate the militants and effectively ensure that they don’t get access to any mode of communication, including mobile phones in the prisons,” they said.
The decision was taken by prison authorities after the reports that jails in Jammu Kashmir had become “a potential breeding ground for radicalisation,” as per the report.
“The sermons on jihad continue in most of the prisons within the Union Territory. Such religious sermons have a deep psychological impact on young inmates who develop an inclination towards joining militancy or getting recruited as over-ground workers for terrorists,” sources said to Deccan Herald.
The report further said that in the last few years, jail authorities and police have seized dozens of mobile phones and SIM cards from the possession of detainees, including Pakistani and Kashmiri militants in Kot-Bhalwal jail. In 2018, an intelligence report had revealed that nearly 300 mobile phones were operational within Srinagar Central jail premises which had become a den for the radicalisation of youths lodged for petty crimes.
Earlier, the Union Home Ministry had asked States and Union Territories (UT) to check radicalisation of detainees inside the jails and take steps to ensure that prisons are not misused by the militants to carry out their networks from inside.
The report also quoted a senior officer of the JK prison department, who said that the shifting of detainees, including militants and separatists, is an ongoing process. “In the recent years hundreds of hardcore (militants), separatists and Public Safety Act (PSA) detainees have been shifted from JK jails to outside state prisons after reports that some of them were in touch with terrorists outside,” he said.
The officer, as per the report, said mainly those militants and separatists are shifted to outside jails who could “radicalize ordinary criminals in the prisons or those who could instigate subversive activities from inside the jails using mobile phones and social media.”
It added that recently, police came across a case in which a Pakistani militant was facilitating the movement of drones from across the border to Jammu in which arms, ammunition, explosives and narcotics were being smuggled. He was taken to the International Border in Arnia and Phallain Mandal, where he was reportedly injured while trying to escape and later succumbed to the injuries.