Ghaziabad, Noida jail inmates get video messages on Raksha Bandhan

The jail prisoners of Gautam Buddh Nagar and Ghaziabad prisons were served with special meals and sweets to mark the Rakshabandhan festival in the jail premises on Monday. This year, no relatives were allowed to meet their loved ones due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Noida/Ghaziabad:Inmates of Gautam Buddh Nagar and Ghaziabad prisons on Monday celebrated Raksha Bandhan by viewing video messages from their families, amid curbs on meeting visitors due to the COVID-19 outbreak, officials said. Around 6,600 prisoners were served special meals and sweets to mark the festival in the jails of the two adjoining districts in western Uttar Pradesh, the officials said. The Luksar jail in Gautam Buddh Nagar has approximately 2,300 inmates while the Dasna jail in Ghaziabad has over 4,300 prisoners, they said.

In an order issued last week, the UP Prisons Administration and Reform Services had asked the prison authorities across the state not to allow outside eatables and physical meetings with visitors in view of the pandemic.

The authorities were also told to take rakhis, akshat (rice) and chandan (sandalwood) sent for prisoners by their family members in envelopes after ensuring proper sanitisation.

The compliance of the order was ensured in both the Dasna and Luksar jails. The rakhis and other permitted items were collected by August 1 and provided to the inmates on Monday after sanitisation. Since their sisters could not meet them, the inmates tie the rakhis to each other, Vipin Mishra, the superintendent of both the jails, told a news agency.

Since the physical meeting was not allowed this year, jail officials made arrangements for family members and visitors to record their audio and video messages for the inmates. The messages were recorded on mobile phones of the prison authorities and were shown to the inmates on Raksha Bandhan, Mishra said.

The superintendent said special meals and sweets were served to the prisoners in both the jails to mark the festival.

The order had stated that the special meals served to prisoners on the first Sunday of every month be provided to them on Raksha Bandhan in August, he added.
While rakhis were received in large numbers, the prison authorities had also ordered the sacred thread in adequate numbers and provided to those who could not get it from their families for whatever reasons, he said.

(PTI)