Raipur, May 18: “Hello mister home minister, I am an inmate calling from Raipur Central Jail. I wish to talk about the sorry state of affairs at the jail...”

The news of a call made from a private mobile phone to the Chhattisgarh home minister, Nankiram Kanwar, on Saturday night took the state’s jail authorities by surprise when they learnt of it today.

With the minister taking serious note of the call, authorities are now scurrying to find out how a phone reached an inmate, if the call was made by an inmate.

The caller, who did not reveal his identity, dialled Kanwar’s number around 11pm on Saturday from the number — 9301230998. He informed the minister that the inmates in the central jail were planning to resort to a hunger strike as they were being offered a poor quality and quantity of food.

Interestingly, Raipur district collector Subodh Singh and superintendent of police Amit Kumar also received similar calls, but from separate numbers.

When Singh asked the caller about his location he was informed that the “inmate” was calling from his barrack. “Soon after receiving the call, I asked the director-general of police (jail) to investigate the matter of the phone call,” Kanwar said.

If it is proven that the caller was a jail inmate, strict action would be taken against jail authorities, he added.

Meanwhile, superintendent of police Amit Kumar said the force had started investigation and was trying to trace the numbers.

Sources said different influential groups of inmates were operating in the central jail and any group could have masterminded the stunt.

A week ago, the Raipur administration had raided jail premises and recovered mobile chargers from the central jail, however, no phones were found.