BENGALURU: The NHRC has issued a notice to the IG (Prisons) alleging that the Karnataka prisons department has violated the norms by not reporting the alleged suicide of the jailed serial killer M. Jaishankar alias Psycho Shankar to it within 24 hours.
The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has taken a suo motu cognizance of a media report that a 38-year-old convict, undergoing imprisonment for 10 years, committed suicide inside the Bengaluru Central Prison by slitting his throat on February 27.
Jaishankar was found dead in his cell and the police suspect that he may have slit his throat with a shaving blade, which he may have stolen from the prison barber.
Shankar was accused in 15 cases of rape and murder, out of which he had been convicted in 3 cases. He was lodged at a separate cell as he was behaving aggressively with other inmates.
Jaishankar became notorious after his sensational prison-break from the high-security Bengaluru prison on September 1, 2013. He had scaled the 30-foot high wall of the prison with the help of a garden pole and climbed down the wall using a rope made of bed sheets.
With the connivance of jail officials, Jaishankar got a duplicate key of the cell. Eleven jail officials were suspended for negligence.
However, Jaishankar was tracked down after a three-day manhunt. The police arrested Jaishankar from an isolated hut close to the Central Prison, where he was lying with multiple fractures of backbone and legs.
Convict was depressed
Expressing concern over the incident the NHRC has sought a report. “The Commission has issued notice to the IG (Prisons), Karnataka, calling for a detailed report in the matter within six weeks. It has observed that the contents of the news report, if true, amount to the negligence on the part of the jail officials, which is a matter of serious concern,” it added.
A prison official who didn’t wish to be named said that Shankar was undergoing treatment for depression. “We suspect he might have requested other prison inmates to get the blade while performing the duties and may have smuggled it inside his cell. However, it is still being investigated,” he said.
Deccan Chronicle tried to contact the IG prisons, but he was not available.
