These men, Dharamvir Gujjar, Surinder Singh and Bhim Singh had allegedly forced inmates to give them money and they refused, they were beaten and punished.

Senior Superintendent of Police, Navdeep Singh Virk said the undertrials would eye new inmates and subject them to assault and torture. Later, they would use the mobile phone to call up relatives of the inmate and demand money.

So to avoid torture at the hands of these men, the victims would invariably pay up. Many such instances had come to light in the past one year, but jail authorities had dismiss these as bullying by hardened criminals.

In August last year, a man from the National Security Guard (NSG), Attar Singh who was lodged in the jail on charges of abduction was attacked by a group of `senior' prisoners following his refusal to pay up. Attar Singh suffered multiple fractures and was left bleeding.

Undertrial Swaminathan suffered a similar fate. He was in jail because he had embezzled lakhs of rupees. He too was tortured by his senior prison counterparts to part with some of the embezzled money. Swaminathan was forced to clean up jail toilets besides undergoing other forms of humiliation.

All this went on until the Jail Superintendent, Raj Singh Yadav raided barrack number five after receiving a tip-off. A cellular phone and a diary with phone numbers of potential victims was recovered from Surinder Singh, Dharam Vir Gujjar and Bhim Singh.