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Police on Sunday conducted flag marches and searches across Punjab in their manhunt for radical preacher Amritpal Singh, arresting 34 more supporters and shifting four men in custody to a jail in far-off Assam. The Punjab and Haryana High Court has, however, asked the state government to respond on Tuesday to a habeas corpus petition, that claiming that the preacher is already in illegal police custody and should be released. Justice N S Shekhawat held the hearing at his home-office as the courts were closed. Police stuck to their version that the Waris Punjab De chief gave them the slip during a car chase in Jalandhar district on Saturday, when the crackdown against the group began. They have slapped fresh FIRs against the Khalistan sympathiser and his supporters. Section 144 of the CrPc, which prohibits congregations, was imposed in the union territory of Chandigarh, the joint capital of Punjab and Haryana. Prohibitory orders were already in force in some parts of Punjab. Polic
The Delhi Prisons department has transferred 19 Deputy Superintendents and over 30 Assistant Superintendents, including the one who had complained against jailed minister and Aam Aadmi Party leader Satyendar Jain of "intimidation and threat", according to an official order. "A total of 19 Deputy Superintendents, 35 Assistant Superintendents and three head warders were transferred," the order, which was issued on Saturday after the approval of Director General (Prisons) Sanjay Baniwal, said. Top officials of Tihar Jail here had accused jailed Delhi minister and AAP leader Jain of "threat and intimidation" and lodged a complaint against him with the Director-General (Prisons), sources said. An assistant superintendent, who was one of the complainants, is one of those who has been transferred. The AAP government, in a statement, termed the allegations against Jain "totally false and concocted" and charged that BJP behind the move. Sources said that the Additional Inspector General -
A clash between inmates armed with guns and knives inside the Latacunga prison in central Ecuador on Monday left at least 15 people dead and 20 injured, authorities said. Officials attributed the fighting to national and international drug trafficking groups which have turned the Andean nation's prisons into the scene of repeated massacres as the groups fight for power and drug distribution rights. Ecuador's national penitentiary service confirmed the death toll in the Latacunga prison, located 50 miles (80 kilometres) south of the capital of Quito. Agents are still searching the prison's pavilions for bodies. Videos in which gunfire and the screams of inmates can be heard were posted on social media. Some 316 inmates were killed inside Ecuador's prisons last year, according to the penitentiary service. So far this year there have been 90 deaths. The worst massacre took place in September of last year in the Litoral Penitentiary in Guayaquil, where 125 prisoners were killed. Ecua
Five Muslim men arrested for an offence have alleged that a Rajgarh district jail officer forced them to shave their beards, following which a senior Madhya Pradesh prison official on Wednesday said a probe was on into the matter. A Congress MLA alleged that these men were abused in the jail, while All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi claimed it was an act of "custodial torture". The five men - Kalim Khan, Talib Khan, Arif Khan, Salman Khan alias Bhola and Wahid Khan - were sent to the district jail on September 13 after being arrested under Indian Penal Code Section 151 (disturbing public peace). They were released on September 15. On Tuesday, Bhopal Congress MLA Arif Masood along with the five men met MP Home Minister Narottam Mishra. Masood accused the jail authorities of forcing the five men to shave their beards and demanded action against the jail authorities. He alleged that these men were also abused in the jail. Masood later said Mishra
Prisoners in Punjab can now spend some time with their spouses as the prisons department has begun conjugal visits for inmates from Tuesday, claiming to be the first state to launch such a facility. Initially, conjugal visits will be allowed at the central jail in Goindwal Sahib, new district jail in Nabha and women's jail in Bathinda, a senior official of the prisons department said. Hardcore criminals, gangsters, high risk prisoners and inmates involved in sexual related offences will, however, not be allowed to avail this facility. The visits -- allowed for prisoners exhibiting good conduct -- will last for two hours and the department has designated a separate room with an attached bathroom, the official said. "Priority will be given to those inmates who have had the longest stay in jails," the official said. "According to the information we have, Punjab is the first state to implement conjugal visits in the country," he claimed. The department expects that this initiative wi