Hyderabad: The prisoners at the Warangal Central Jail were packing up all their belongings, bedding, clothes, buckets and pans, to shift home. The first batch with 119 inmates, which included 39 women, were moved out, accompanied by heavy security, escort vehicles and armed cops.
This arrangement is solely for the 135-year-old Nizam-era jail built on 69 acre to be vacated inside a month and handed over to the health department for a super-speciality hospital to be built within a year’s time.
In the coming two weeks, all 966 inmates present here, including extremists and political prisoners, will be transferred to other jails across Telangana.
According to Telangana DG (Prisons) Rajiv Trivedi, it is a sensitive operation as nearly 1,000 people need to be shifted elsewhere. “The movement will be sensitive. There will be security issues and concerns. The police have been very cooperative. They gave prisoner escort vehicles, the armed escort was also given,” Trivedi was quoted as saying by NDTV.
The decision was made by Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao to convert the jail into a hospital following a visit last month. The cabinet gave the approval on Sunday last.
“For moving undertrials and those on probation, we need to get court permission,” the jail authorities said.
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