Patna, (Bihar Times): Police used canes to quell the revolt by the inmates of the Beur Central Jail near Patna on Tuesday. Earlier in the day some 350-400 inmates, mostly Maoists, created ruckus and beat out the jail staff following the suicide by one of the inmates.

However, the IG (Prison), Sandeep Poundrik, refused to accept it as a revolt and said that in the afternoon lathi-wielding police party was sent inside after the repeated appeal by the authorities failed to bring the situation back to normal.

It needs to be mentioned that at present over 2,600 prisoners are lodged in the jail instead of the actual strength of 1,400. The jail is grossly under-staffed. The condition of other jails in the state is even worse.

It needs to be mentioned that 379 prisoners escaped from the Jehanabad jail on November 13, 2005––that is 11 days before Nitish Kumar became the chief minister––when about 1,000 Maoists attacked it and killed the security-guards. A sizeable number of those who managed to escape could not yet be re-arrested.

The Tuesday incident in the state capital is a pointer to the fact that things have not improved within the four-walls of the prisons of Bihar. Officials, however, once again claim that high-alert warning has been issued throughout the state. Incidentally, the revolt took place only two days after the escape of 299 prisoners from a jail in Chhattisgarh.