Law and order: Lurking danger in unscheduled halts of police escort vehicles with prisoners at wayside hotels

A remand prisoner from Coimbatore on the way to Madurai Central prison made good his escape when the police escort vehicle made an unscheduled halt at Nagamalai Pudukottai on Tuesday.

The police had stopped to buy food for the four prisoners at around 8 p.m.

Even as two of the police personnel had gone into the eatery, abutting the Madurai-Dindigul highway, to buy food, one of them made most of the opportunity and disappeared under the cover of darkness.

The police team, after searching for him for a while, alerted the Madurai district police. But, then it was too late and the accused from Uttar Pradesh is yet to be traced.

Less than a fortnight ago, in a similar unscheduled stoppage of a strong escort van, carrying a history-sheeter from Madurai, at a hotel in Perambalur district, resulted in the rival gang hurling country-made bombs on the van.

Two policemen were injured in the incident.

Lowering guard

In both incidents, the escort police personnel had not only violated the security rules, but also lowered their guard.

“For such long travel, the jail provides take-away lunch for the prisoners exactly to avoid such untoward incidents,” a police officer said.

The escort vehicles are authorised to stop only in any of the police stations en route to allow the prisoners to eat their food or use the restrooms. “The escort vehicles are not allowed to stop at way-side hotels, not just because the prisoners could escape, but also they could be targetted by their rivals,” the officer said.

But, in practice, the police personnel often budge to the demand of the prisoners as they would like to have some “tasty food of different variety” whenever they get a chance to come out of jail.

Unruly prisoners

The prisoners often complain about the “bland” food they are served in the jail. “If the police team deny them permission to eat at hotels, the unruly prisoners would create lot of trouble throughout the journey. Some of them also injure themselves only to avenge the stubbornness of the police party,” another officer said.

Though the policemen need to face the consequences for breaching security measures, they often take a chance with prisoners to buy peace with them, the police say.