Gupta submits report on Burail jailbreak

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal">CHANDIGARH: Former Delhi police commissioner R S Gupta, heading a three member inquiry committee into the lapses which lead to the sensational jailbreak by three hard core terrorists from Burail model jail here on the intervening night of January 21 and 22 this year, submitted a voluminous report to the UT administration in New Delhi on Friday night.<br /><br />Sources said Gupta handed over the nearly 100 page report in a sealed cover to the advisor to the UT administrator Lalit Sharma who happened to be in the national capital.Though the contents of the report were not immediately known, sources said the document dwelled in great depth into the lapses in the administration of the jail and the supervisory mechanisms that enabled the escape of three undertrials in the assassination of then Punjab chief minister Beant Singh in 1995 by digging a 94-feet long tunnel.<br /><br /><br /></div> </div><div class="section2"><div class="Normal"><br />It also listed out the measures required to prevent recurrence of such incidents.<br /><br />While R S Gupta, who also remained inspector general of Chandigarh police in the early 1990s, when contacted on e phone in New Delhi insisted that this reporter talk to the advisor, Lalit Sharma confirmed the receipt of the report and said he would hand over the sealed report to Punjab governor and UT administrator O P Verma on his return to the city.<br /><br />Sharma is credited with the view that the administration is committed to transparency in its functioning and it will make the findings of the inquiry committee public.<br /><br />The inquiry committee, which had as its other members Chandigarh Municipal Corporation commissioner M P Singh and Chandigarh senior superintendent of police Gaurav Yadav, is learnt to have held 12-13 sittings in the city during which it examined 23-24 witnesses.<br /><br />The members of the committee also visited the prominent jails in the neighbouring states of Punjab (Nabha), Haryana (Ambala), Himachal Pradesh (Shimla) and Delhi (Tihar) to study the systems in force in these jails.<br /><br />The committee is also understood to have examined various recorded documents on previous jailbreaks in the country, especially a report on a jailbreak in Tamil Nadu, and the model jail manual circulated among the states by the Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPRD).<br /><br />The UT administration embarrassed by probably the most sensational bailbreak ever in the country, had immediately repatriated jail superintendent D S Rana to his parent state of Punjab and suspended deputy jail superintendent D S Sandhu and assistant jail superintendent P S Rana for their alleged complicity/negligence. They were also arrested. Later another deputy jail superintendent V M Gill was also taken in after evidence emerged that he might have facilitated the escape by supplying a book on great escapes to the undertrials.<br /><br /><br /></div> </div><div class="section3"><div class="Normal"><br />Subsequently the three jail officials of the UT cadre were dismissed from service. The three escaped terrorists - Jagtar Singh Hawara, Jagtar Singh Tara and Paramjit Singh Bheora - alongwith a murder convict, who escaped with them, remain untraced even three months after the jailbreak even when the police forces of Chandigarh and Punjab have arrested more than half a dozen people for aiding the terrorists in their escape or participating in the conspiracy.<br /><br /><formid=526372></formid=526372></div> </div>