Kannur: The jails in the district here are now overcrowded with remand prisoners following a series of violent incidents and clashes that took place recently. The number of remand prisoners housed in the Kannur Central Prison rose to 300 following the arrest of CPM district secretary P Jayarajan. Most of the remand prisoners kept in the Central Prison now are those arrested in connection with the violent incidents and attacks on party offices and police which followed the arrest of P Jayarajan.
The Central Prison here can accommodate only 1,013 prisoners, according to the jail authorities. The number of prisoners including the remand prisoners have now exceeded 1,100. The District Jail opened a few months ago has a capacity to accommodate 159 prisoners, but the government has taken no measures to appoint the staff required to administer the jail. The District Jail function as an annex of the Central Prison.
The Special Sub-jail now has nearly 144 prisoners as against its capacity to lodge 100 prisoners. About 70 of them were shifted recently to the Central Prison. The Sub-jail here is also crowded with remand prisoners now. The capacity of the Sub-jail is 28, but the total number of occupants is double this number.
Most of the remand prisoners kept in the jails are political workers belonging to various parties. A demand to provide better facilities to the remand prisoners has already been raised by leaders of political parties.
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