Two prisoners convicted in Pocso cases escaped from the Morigaon district jail in Assam on the intervening night of Tuesday and Wednesday, once again exposing the security chinks in the facility which have been breached for the second time in less than a year.
Five undertrial prisoners (UTPs) had escaped from the same jail on October 11, and, according to a police official, the modus operandi adopted by the two inmates to escape appeared to be similar.
The escapees have been identified as Md Ziarul Islam, 23, and Subrata Sarkar, 33, hailing from separate villages under Jagiroad police station in Morigaon district. They were convicted in separate Pocso cases, a police official said.
The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) Act, 2012, carries a minimum jail term of 20 years, if convicted.
The two inmates allegedly cut through the window grille of their newly built barrack, likely by a hacksaw, and used lungis and bedsheets to scale down the jail wall on the intervening night of Tuesday and Wednesday, a police official said.
Rods, gamosas and bedsheets were recovered from the escape site.
“Jail authorities came to know about the jailbreak around 5am. Inspector-general (prisons) is taking stock of the situation. The search for the two escapees is on. The escape is similar to the one witnessed in last October in which five undertrial prisoners escaped. They were convicted in separate Pocso cases,” the official said.
For Ziarul, it is his second successful escape from jail, the official added.
Ziarul was one of the five UTPs who escaped in October 2024 but was arrested subsequently from Andhra Padesh on November 2 on “inputs” provided by the state police. The body of one of the five escapees was also found three days later from a water body in the district.
Several jail staffers, including the jailor and wardens, were suspended following the jailbreak. The security of the facility was also reviewed but the latest jailbreak suggests lessons from October have gone abegging.
“The jail authorities have to revisit their SoP and plug the loopholes,” a source, familiar with the jailbreak case, said.
Drug arrests
Banned Yaba tablets worth over ₹5 crore were seized in Assam’s Sribhumi district on Wednesday, and two persons were arrested in this connection, chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said.
Additional reporting by PTI