153 Goindwal prison inmates shifted to Amritsar, Gurdaspur, Pathankot jails

AMRITSAR : The Punjab prisons department has shifted 153 inmates, including hardcore gangsters, from Goindwal Central Jail in Tarn Taran district to Amritsar, Gurdaspur and Pathankot.

The high security Goindwal jail has been in the news for wrong reasons — including running of networks by inmates for drugs and weapons’ smuggling from Pakistan and conspiring big attacks and targeted killings — since its opening in December 2021.

According to an order issued by the department, the copy of which is with HT, 120 inmates have been shifted to Amritsar Central Jail where the authorities have recently installed a tele call-blocking system. The system installed on trial basis would help curb the use of mobile phones by inmates, who were running their network from the jail premises. The new system blocks all signals from 2G to 5G mobile networks, said an official privy to the development.

Similarly, 29 inmates have been shifted to the Gurdaspur jail while four have been sent to the Pathankot jail.

Goindwal Central Jail superintendent Gurcharan Singh Dhaliwal said: “The shifted inmates are facing criminal cases in Amritsar and Gurdaspur. The move will make it easy for the authorities to present them in Amritsar and Gurdaspur courts.”

People familiar with the development said the move came after reports of possible clash between groups of inmates in the Goindwal jail.

In April, an alert was issued in all prisons of the state over an input that Canada-based gangster-turned-terrorist Lakhbir Singh, alias Landa, was planning to launch an armed attack on a central jail to release his associates.

Additional director general of police (ADGP-jails) Arun Pal had written to all superintendents of the state prisons to take necessary steps to avoid any untoward incident.

According to the letter, Landa had also planned an attack on senior officials of the prisons department to get his gang members released.

In February, two groups of rival gangs of Jaggu Bhagwanpuria and Lawrence Bishnoi clashed in the Goindwal jail leading to the death of two gangsters involved in Punjabi singer Sidhu Moose Wala’s killing.

Police had busted several rackets being run from the Goindwal jail, including smuggling of drugs and weapons from across the border. Some target killings were also planned form the prison, said an official who didn’t wish to be named.

An official of Amritsar Central Jail said: “The prison here is already overcrowded. Sending more inmates here would be a threat to security. Our jail has the capacity of accommodating 2,200 inmates, but currently we have more than 3,300.”