Ranchi, July 16: Ranchi's Birsa Munda Central Jail, housing 2,745 undertrials and convicted prisoners, including veteran politician Sawna Lakra and Sanjeevani Buildcon ladies Anita and Anamika Nandi, witnessed a surprise raid before dawn on Thursday in the rain, but the findings were, perhaps not surprisingly, a damp squib.

Billed as a "routine but surprise" raid, a four-member team of magistrates led by Rajesh Kumar Singh and around 70 police personnel, including 18 officers in charge and four deputy superintendents of police, led by city SP Jaya Roy, reached the Hotwar jail, about 10km from the city proper, at 4am.

For the next 150 minutes, the team fanned out across the 68-acre premises, hunting for banned items inside the prison that can pose a threat to jail security.

However, later SSP Prabhat Kumar confirmed the findings, saying the raid team had recovered tobacco ( khaini), cigarettes, bidis, small curved knives, mobile chargers and music systems.

The list looks almost harmless, indicating that the surprise raid might not have been one, after all.

The obvious clue that the more dangerous items had been hidden away lay in the recovery of mobile chargers. No cell phone was found.

OC Kumar Saryu Anand of Sadar police station, under which the Birsa jail falls, said: "The presence of mobile charger in the jail indicated mobile phones were being used inside the premises." But, he did not elaborate.

Though jail authorities claimed to have installed jammers, DSP (Kotwali) Ranveer Singh, who was a part of the raid team, went one step ahead of Anand. Singh said he could not say if the jammers were working or not.

"We had put our arms and mobile phones in our vehicles. Can't say if jammers were working. Need to get it verified," the DSP said.

Kotwali OC Vijay Kumar Singh said it was raining during the raid but they did a thorough job. "We divided ourselves into 15 teams and went to every cell, nook and cranny. There were women constables also," he said.

Under norms, after a prison raid, the thana concerned needs to register an FIR if something objectionable is recovered. Till the filing of this report, no report had been filed though Sadar OC Anand said it would definitely be done "very soon".

Birsa jail with a capacity to house 3,200 inmates has often been called as the largest modern jail in India.

Besides cells, it has a 200-bed hospital, an open-air theatre, common rooms and creches for women prisoners with children.