Petition for a judicial inquiry into the death of an undertrial in Beur jail last week was filed in Patna High Court on Monday, questioning the prison administration's claim that the prisoner had committed suicide.
Jitendra Kumar, a 30-year-old undertrial facing charges of dowry harassment, allegedly hanged himself to death at the Beur Central Jail on Saturday. He was sent to jail on September 13 last year with his father Rajkishore Chaudhary and younger brother Vinod Chaudhary.
The PIL filed by high court advocate Manibhushan Pratap Sengar has sought a judicial inquiry into cases of undertrials allegedly committing suicide in different jails of Bihar in the last 10 years, and how the banned articles reach the prisons.
The chief secretary, home secretary, director-general of police, inspector-general (jail), have been made party in the case along with the divisional commissioner, Patna district magistrate and senior superintendent of police.
Jitendra and his family members were arrested under the Dowry Prohibition Act after Vinod's wife lodged an FIR against her husband and in-laws, accusing them of harassing her for dowry. Jitendra's mother and sister are lodged in the female ward of Beur jail as well.
The petition states the undertrial's suicide was because of security lapses in the jail as banned and restricted articles easily find its way in to the state's prisons.
Jitendra was found hanging from a towel tied to the iron rod of his prison ward door.
Petitioner Sengar has attached in his petition instances of other cases where undertrials have died in Bihar jails in the past decade. In 2013, a prisoner in Hajipur jail died and the jail administration attributed it to some illness, but the post-mortem report had later revealed the prisoner was murdered.
An undertrial accused of killing her husband allegedly committed suicide last Wednesday by hanging herself in the women's ward of Bagaha jail in West Champaran district.
The petition lists other cases as well.
According to the National Crime Records Bureau, 781 inmates have died in Bihar's jails between 2004 and 2009. That translates to one inmate dying every third day. The crime records bureau has also recorded 76 incidents of group clashes among jail inmates across the country in 2008, with Bihar leading the table with 17 cases. Again, of 259 prisoners who took their lives between 2004 and 2008 in the country's jails, 20 were in Bihar prisons.
Sengar has said Saturday's incident was not a standalone case, as custodial deaths are common in Bihar putting both the state government and the jail administration in the dock.
