I was posted as the director general of prisons, Delhi, on 22 November 2010.

Having served all my years with the police force in mainstream police assignments, this posting came as a shock, at least initially. A bit of unsavoury police politics was behind it, but I will not waste my breath over it here. As it turned out, my stint in the new job turned out to be a memorable and fulfilling tenure. This story is one of many from my Tihar days.

Delhi prisons are commonly referred to as Tihar Jail. However, what is not commonly known is that it is not one jail, but consists of ten jails—numbered one to ten— located in one complex in what was once an urban village called Tihar. Another prison complex exists in Rohini, in far west Delhi, which is also an integral part of the prisons department of the capital. In 2016, five years after I left the prisons department, another prison complex, comprising six jails, became operational at Mandoli in north-east Delhi, bordering Uttar Pradesh.

It may be of some interest for a reader that besides the director general, who is a senior officer from the Indian Police Service (IPS), no other staff member serving in the jail is from the police. Therefore, when an IPS officer joins at the senior-most position in the prisons department, he is the sole policeman there and finds himself ‘alone’ in an unfamiliar environment. The discipline, regimentation and camaraderie found in the police are missing.

More importantly, having spent his entire professional life pursuing and putting away offenders, he is suddenly supervising their correctional and reformation work—an occupation he is clueless about. The assignment thus is not particularly coveted and often considered a ‘punishment’ posting. This is true not only of Delhi but most other states in India as well.


To be Continued ………….