Puri: A petition has been filed with the Odisha Human Rights Commission (OHRC) seeking an impartial probe into the alleged suicide of an undertrial at Puri district jail March 3.
Petitioner Prasanna Kumar Dash urged the rights body to take appropriate action to find out whether the undertrial had committed suicide or some people had killed him inside the jail.
“The district jail has been kept under tight security. There is also round-the-clock CCTV surveillance. But, the jail authorities did not know anything when the prisoner committed suicide in a toilet,” Dash, the convener of social outfit Sachetan Nagarik Manch said in his petition.
The petitioner alleged that the jail authorities have turned a blind eye to the safety of prisoners. “We have information that many prisoners at the district jail are going through depression. The jail authorities have failed to arrange proper counseling for the prisoners,” Dash alleged in his petition.
Notably, Akbar Muhammad Seikh, 28, an accused in an abduction and rape case, had hanged himself inside a toilet at the district jail March 3.
The jail authorities had rushed Sheikh to the district headquarters hospital, where doctors declared the latter as dead on arrival.
