Jamshedpur: Rape case convict dies in Ghaghidih Central Jail

Jamshedpur, Jan 17: A 59-year-old convict Dhiren Tuddu died on Tuesday morning at the Ghaghidih Central Jail. Tuddu was convicted in a gang rape case and was serving his sentence at the central jail since 2014. Sources informed that he died due to suspected heart attack. According to police, Tuddu used to work in a bakery inside the central jail premises and would work as a gardener while serving his jail term.

“It is too early to comment on his death. As per our information, on Monday afternoon he was working in the garden of the jail when he suddenly fell down. The other fellow inmates rushed him to his ward from where he was shifted to the jail hospital immediately. Considering Tuddu’s serious condition, the jail doctor referred them to the MGM medical college hospital where the doctors declared him as brought dead,” said an official of Ghaghidih Central Jail.

The jail administration informed the deceased’s family members who turned up at the medical college hospital to claim that Tuddu might have died due to some other reason as he was alright by Sunday morning when they had a telephonic conversation with him.

The administration is preparing a postmortem of the body under a medical board to find out the exact cause of his death. The doctors at the MGM medical college hospital have said that the prisoner died due to a cardiac arrest.

Spread over 20 acres of land, the Ghaghidih Central Jail has a prisoners’ capacity of 1,447.  Presently, the central jail has 16 CCTV cameras out of which only four are operational whereas the rest 12 have gone out of order due to poor maintenance. There have been frequent clashes between undertrial prisoners in the jail. Gangs owing allegiance to gangster Paramjeet Singh and Akhilesh Singh battled inside the jail on March 20, 2008. While Paramjeet was shot dead, another convict belonging to the rival group was lynched.