Lawyers stir leads to jam packed jails in Orissa

Lawyers stir leads to jam packed jails in Orissa
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA

BHUBANESWAR, JAN 12: The continuing strike by lawyers in Orissa demanding withdrawal of professional tax imposed in the state recently has caused the jails in the state to overflow with undertrial prisoners, the Pradesh Youth Congress president, Lalatendu Bidyadhar Mohapatra alleged on Friday.

Though the police has been arresting people on various charges, including bailable offences, the arrested persons continued to be in the jails as no bail petition could be moved in the courts on their behalf in the absence of lawyers, he told a news conference here.

Mohapatra said that he had collected information about 32 jails in the state including the Choudwar Central Jail which showed that there were over 9,000 prisoners in the prisons which had the capacity to house around 4,000 people.

Prisoners are now kept under tents in some jails as no space was available, he said and claimed that in the Puri jail, they were sleeping at night in turns as no space was available.

Alleging that the situation in jails amounted to violation of human rights, he said the state government had utterly failed to bring to an end the long drawn strike by the advocates resulting in the present situation.

Mohapatra said that the BJD-BJP coalition government should sort out the matter quickly by holding discussions with leaders of different political parties, the state Bar Council and different Bar Associations.