PTI
Mumbai, Jun 9: Nearly two truckloads of prohibited goods, including utensils, cooking material, a cell phone, battery chargers and mobile recharge coupons, which illegally made their way inside the high-security Arthur Road prison, have been confiscated, jail authorities said on Thursday.
The seizure has been made less than a week after the high-profile Swati Sathe was brought back to head the Arthur Road prison just over a year after she was transferred to Pune.
The Mumbai crime branch is also trying to find out how cell phones reach underworld gangsters lodged in the high security Arthur Road prison, a probe launched after the police intercepted jailed Chhota Rajan gangster D K Rao having lengthy talks on phone with his overseas boss, Mumbai crime branch sources said.
Apart from utensils and cooking material that was seized from the jail premises, authorities also seized one cell phone, six mobile batteries, a charger, two recharge coupons and Rs 12,000 cash from among the 3,000 strong undertrials, jail sources said.
Arrested members of the underworld gangs of Dawood Ibrahim and Chota Rajan form a major chunk of Arthur Road prison undertrials, and the police suspect the jail staff to be hand-in-glove with the undertrials in providing them all sorts of comforts, sources said.
The new jail superintendent, Swati Sathe, told PTI that 24 trainee officers of Daulatrao Jadhav Jail Officers Training Institute in Pune were asked to conduct the search and seizure job at Arthur Road to keep the local jail staff at bay.
"We were not able to seize SIM cards as it was not possible to frisk each and every jail inmate. But we are keeping a close watch and will not allow anybody to misuse jail premises," she further said.