GREATER NOIDA: Days after an FIR was lodged in an alleged case of extortion going on inside the Luksar jail premises, the jail superintendent BS Mukund, who got praise from the PM for his previous stint in Kaushambi jail has been transferred.
Mukund who got the Noida posting after he found a mention and praise in the PM’s Mann Ki Baat programme for the Kaushambi jail’s initiative for protection of cows during winters in December 2020, had been given the posting at Greater Noida’s Luksar jail – considered a prime posting in police circles- in January 2021.
However, soon after his transfer, there were reports that the jail superintendent had been taking steps to curb malpractices going inside the jail.
“The jail superintendent had been involved in weakening many gang members sitting inside the jail.
For example, the accused lodged inside the Luksar jail in the Bike Bot multi-crore fraud case and the members of Sunder Bhati gang and other gangs, etc, were being made to stay separately.
Previously, many of them had been lodged together,” a source in the Luksar jail told TOI.
This along with tightening of security measures, instances of which had come to fore before Holi, led to some complaints being made against Mukund as “some persons with approach were not happy.” Ahead of Holi, jail officials had caught 450 grammes of cannabis from inside the Luksar jail in small packets of namkeen and Kurkure which was sourced by an inmate in a bid to possibly distribute the same to inmates during Holi celebrations inside the jail.
Further, checking was enhanced inside the jail and a mobile phone was recovered from the possession of a female home guard during checking of female inmates and staff in the jail in April after which an FIR was lodged against a female home guard and the inmate for section 42 of the jail act.
“Some of the steps had not gone down well with some people with approach,” the jailor told TOI.
An illegal extortion racket running inside the premises of the Greater Noida jail was exposed when t was revealed that kin of some inmates were asked to pay money in exchange of getting illegitimate “facilities” inside the jail.
On the basis of the complaints from two of the inmates, an FIR had been lodged in the case in the Ecotech I police station at the behest of the jailor.
According to the FIR in possession with TOI, two inmates identified as Amanpreet of Ludhiana and Harendra from Harendra from Dadri allegedly gave complaints to the Luksar jailor about the extortion racket being run from inside the jail.
The two inmates alleged that during Covid times, their relatives who would come to meet them were made to deposit money into a Paytm account belonging to a kiryana store owner Rohit Bansal whose store is located in Greater Noida’s Birondi village.
Ajay Pratap Singh, jail superintendent from Kanpur Dehat has not been posted as superintendent of Luksar jail.