Morung Express News
Dimapur | July 1
Imagine being chained and locked in a stuffy room without a fan in the heat of the Dimapur summer, isolated with only one or two people 24 hours a day; with no other options but to defecate and urinate in a bucket in front of others! Not a very entertaining thought, indeed.
But the convicts and police suspects who happen to fall sick or unwell while staying in the prisons or in police thanas have to go through these conditions while they are under treatment at the Prisons cabin in the Dimapur Civil Hospital.
The Morung Express team made a visit to the cabin on June 30 and findings were simply distressing.
The room which measures hardly about three meters in breadth and thirteen meters in length has three sick prisoners under treatment at present. The room does not have a fan, so the convicts have brought a table fan to keep themselves cool, said one of the inmates who was convicted under an assault case and admitted in the hospital for internal injuries. He said that they had also bought the light bulb since the room did not even have a bulb. They are also made to relieve themselves inside the room though the room does not have any toilet facilities. Moreover, the guards said that as a rule, the convicts have to be chained, since some of them had escaped in the past while undergoing treatment in the hospital.
“We are made to do it (relieve themselves) here, wash and clean…it is not hygienic… and also not convenient for two, three persons,” said the convict in perfect English. “We can’t even wash our faces, it is also a health problem,” he added. He said that his family and relatives bring everything for them like medicines and food.
One hospital staff said that the government supply medicines are limited and not for all kinds of diseases, so they “give to those who need them”. Besides, he said that the government supplied medicines are cheap and poor in quality. He however, said that the prisoners are treated like any other patients in the hospital without any bias.
However, the chains on the convicts’ ankles, and lack of toilets and other facilities, said the whole story.
The Guards Quarter
There are nine police personnel headed by a Havildar guarding the convicts twenty four hours a day. They are posted in the hospital on a two month rotation basis. They have to eat drink and sleep and stay in the hospital during their postings, living in small shanties on the roof of the hospital.
Like the convicts, the living condition of the guards is more or less, if not more, pathetic; torn and worn out plastic covered make-shift camps, open-air kitchen and a lot of mosquitoes; the summer heat making life harder for them.
Their kitchen has been made out of a defunct water tank, with the mouth of the tank acting as the chimney.
“This is our kitchen,” said one of the guards, “When it rains we have to run over there.” “Pani poouri se koile, bhat napai!” said another. (When it rains, we usually do not get food).
The guards said that the government supplies fifteen kilograms of rice per head besides some daal, dry red chilly and twice a month they get meat. However, the two camps where they stay is the most pathetic of all; with old worn out blue tarpaulins (plastic) and carton boxes for the roof, and inside, three beds, and nothing more. No television, no entertainment to pass their time.
“The authorities would come some times and they just provide the tarpaulins, but you know that these plastics last only for one or two months,” said one guard.
“We are living like in a pig sty” said another guard, “When it rains we cannot sleep, because the water leaks in and soaks us all.” The guards disclosed there have been complaints to the higher authorities in the past, but till now there has been no action taken towards this end, they lamented.
Besides being on the roof of the building, they added that the heat and mosquitoes makes their life all the more miserable.
‘Apathetic’
A noted lawyer and a Human Right activist, Ayo Aier termed the treatment meted out to the prisoners in the hospital as apathetic on the part of the hospital authorities and said that they should treat all the convicts and under-trail prisoner admitted in the hospital equally regardless of what they are.
She strongly suggested that the police department should have some clear cut policy with regard to convicts and under-trail prisoners who are admitted in the hospital.
Aier said that just because some prisoners have escaped while under treatment in the hospital, this cannot be the basis or excuse to justify the act of putting the prisoners in chains twenty four hours a day while under treatment in the hospital.
Aier strongly asserted that the police should be able to provide the security so that the convicts and under-trial prisoner do not escape while under treatment.
“They (the police department) should come up with some measures in consonant with the hospital authorities,” opined Ayo Aier.
‘Humane improvement’
Looking at the present condition at the Dimapur Civil Hospital with regard to the convicts and under-trial patients, and also the living condition of the guards; one thing that is needed is not simply improvement for improvement’s sake; but an improvement in a humane manner that would look into the basic rights of a human being. Is anybody listening?
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