The raid went on for three hours during which the second floor of ward number 9, the ground and first floor of ward number 7 and the ground floor of ward number 8 were searched. All these wards house around 400-500 undertrials. Senior officials themselves rummaged through baggage of the inmates and even frisked them.

“During the search, six cellphones were found and three of them had SIM cards,” said Sharma. One of the cellphones was found while frisking an inmate, Zakir Sheikh, who is an accused in the infamous Basanti murder case. Later, at the ground floor of ward number 8, a DVD player was found wrapped in a blanket. A number of pornographic DVDs were also seized.

“The cellphone seized from Zakir was live and rang five times after we seized it. The phone was in silent mode. We are verifying the incoming and outgoing calls. The cellphones were used by these criminals for running extortion rings from inside the jail,” said an officer of the detective department.