Raipur: In a bid to suffocate plots of possible jail breaks by arrested Maoists, mobile phone jammers will be installed at seven jails in Chhattisgarh.
"There will be 25 cell phone jammers to be installed at seven jails, at a cost of Rs 6 crore. The trial process is on and we plan to make the system operational within the next few weeks. This will help us to prevent cellular phones from receiving signals from or transmitting signals to base stations," an official of the jail department said here on Saturday.
The jammers would be installed at four jails located at Raipur, Bilaspur, Jagdalpur and Ambikapur towns besides the district jail at Kanker, sub-jails at Katghora in Korba district and Dantewada, the worst Maoist insurgency-hit district of the country.
In December 2007, a group of Maoists lodged at the Dantewada sub-jail, 380 km from Raipur, had successfully plotted a jail break by using mobile phones. Some 300 prisoners, including about 100 leftist rebels, managed to escape.
Later, the state government had decided to go in for mobile phone jammers at jails where Maoist guerrillas and dreaded criminals were housed.
The jammers will also help the jail authorities to curb organised crime and extortion businesses being operated by hardcore criminals from the prisons with the help of mobile phones.
IANS
First Published: Saturday, February 27, 2010, 12:48