Mysuru starts releasing convicts on parole as 30 test positive for COVID-19

With about 30 inmates of Mysuru Central jail testing positive for COVID-19 so far during the second wave, the authorities have set in place containment measures including releasing eligible convicts on parole.

Superintendent of Mysuru Central jail Divyashree said the infection had been noticed among new admissions and patients returning from hospitals after treatment of other ailments.

Hence, the jail authorities have now created a separate quarantine facility, where new admissions and patients returning from hospitals will be kept till RTPCR test shows negative. “Only if they test negative, we will send them to barracks,” she said. All COVID-19 positive inmates had been shifted to the COVID-19 Care Centre at Metagalli in Mysuru.

Meanwhile, the jail authorities have begun releasing convicts on parole as per guidelines issued in the wake of a Supreme Court direction last year to prevent transmission due to overcrowding.

Mysuru jail has about 800 inmates, including over 500 convicts. While undertrials will have to be released on interim bails, the convicts will be released on parole for two months as per the guidelines.

“We released 22 on Friday and the process of releasing more is underway,” Ms. Divyashree said, adding that the jail authorities will be releasing all the 66 inmates, who had been released last year in the first phase.

To a question, she said all the inmates, who had been released last year in the first week of April 2020, had returned by the first week of June 2020, the time fixed for their surrender on conclusion of the parole.

While all the 66 inmates, who had been released last year, will be released in the coming days, some more will be released in the second phase.

The district-level committees comprising senior judges and police officials, besides the jail superintendent will draw up a list of more eligible inmates, which will be sent to the police officials of districts from where the inmates hail. After receiving a report from the respective superintendents and a sanction from the senior prison officials, the inmates will be released.