Football club to kickstart playtime for prisoners

KOLKATA: Prisoners lodged in city jails will now get an opportunity to step out of the confines of the four walls to test their sporting skills in open playgrounds.
The West Bengal Correctional Home Residents' Sports Club is about to be registered under the Societies Act, 1860 so that its members (essentially inmates of different central jails) are exposed to a level playing field.The prisoners could even be allowed to participate in tournaments that would be open to spectators in the football clubs.
It will, however, take some time to attain such standards and the state jails department is doing everything in its capacity to ensure that the players graduate from mere amateurs and play the game in all seriousness. For that, the department is even keen to approach big names like Baichung Bhutia and Amal Dutta to coach the selected few who have already shown spark.
In fact, football coach Amal Dutta has already had a stint with the inmates of Alipur jail. Once the sporting club is registered, the authorities will try and rope him in for some more sessions at a stretch.
Once trained, the inmates will be taken out on parole whenever a tournament comes up. B D Sharma, inspector-general of police, correctional homes, said: "The idea is to provide a level playing field for the inmates. If they become professionals, their mental health, which is a major issue in the jails, will improve immensely. And so will physical fitness."
Sharma, also the chairman of the central executive committee of the club, said: "By taking part in football or kabaddi tournaments, the inmates will be able to interact socially with the outside world. Increasingly, they will associate with the civil society and feel less isolated from it."
Sharma said he would get professional football and kabaddi clubs to arrange tournaments with the prisoners' club. The headquarters of the club would be the Alipur jail and its jurisdiction will cover such sports clubs in correctional homes across the state. "Whenever we have had matches at the correctional homes the inmates have surprised us with their competence. I am sure, quality coaching over a period of time will turn them into professionals," he said.
The IG wants to put equal stress on kabaddi. "Most inmates come from a rural background, so kabaddi comes to them naturally. They would fare excellently in this game as they would in football," he said. To provide a varied choice of sport for the prisoners, the jails department wants to introduce cricket and table tennis as well.