Alipore: A doctor at the Alipore Central Correctional Home has been arrested for allegedly trying to smuggle cash, 35 mobile phones, four litres of alcohol and 2kg of ganja (cannabis) into the prison.

"The accused, Amitabha Chowdhury, was about to enter the prison compound with a bag late on Friday when he was taken aside for frisking. A look inside the bag yielded all the seized items, including Rs 1.4 lakh in cash," a member of the investigation team said.

Chowdhury, who used to be a doctor in the army before joining the correctional services department, was produced in a court on Saturday and remanded in judicial custody for two days. The charges drawn up against him are under sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985.

The correctional services department had been keeping tabs on the doctor as part of a larger investigation into a supply and extortion racket involving "insiders" at various central jails.

The week before Chowdhury's arrest, two inmates of the Dum Dum Central Correctional Home had allegedly called a couple of businessmen in Baguiati to demand Rs 10 lakh from each. The calls made by Biswajit Das and Bapi Raman, both awaiting trial, were from phones smuggled into the prison, an officer said.

On Friday night, a team led by the deputy inspector-general of correctional services, Biplab Das, was waiting at the Alipore prison when Chowdhury alighted from a taxi. "This was around 11pm. He refused to be frisked and tried to run away, but Das caught him," the officer said.

Supply of alcohol, drugs and mobile phones to inmates is an open secret across prisons, but this is the first known instance of a doctor attached to the Alipore correctional home being arrested for playing the conduit.

Chowdhury, a resident of Naktala, would allegedly earn between Rs 50,000 and Rs 60,000 a month from inmates by charging double or triple the market price of various items banned inside the prison.

The cash found on the doctor was possibly extortion money that he was supposed to hand over in return for a cut.

According to the police, Chowdhury's army pension is around Rs 50,000 a month. His salary as an employee of the correctional services department is close to Rs 90,000.

The department has set up a committee to probe how Chowdhury had been running the racket for almost a year. "The committee's brief includes identifying the beneficiaries among the inmates of the prison and other insiders who might be involved," the officer said.