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Mobile phones stuffed in shoe soles, scalpel sewn into coat sleeves, drugs injected into tennis balls — these are just a few of the tricks jailbirds employ to smuggle contraband into India’s prisons

In February 2014, a real estate developer made his way nervously to the prisonward of Mumbai’s St. George’s Hospital. He had recently bagged a Slum Rehabilitation Authority project, a lucrative business opportunity in one of the world’s most expensive housing markets.

For over a month, he had been getting threatening phone calls from the “underworld”. They ordered him to pay a hefty extortion amount or stop work on the project. When he refused to pay heed, a henchman turned up at his doorstep. The builder was forced to accompany him to the hospital. Awaiting him in the prison ward, in perfect good health, was Ravi Mallesh Bora alias D.K. Rao, a top aide of gangster Rajendra Nikhalje alias Chhota Rajan.

Three years later, in 2017, the builder finally approached the Mumbai Crime Branch. Its Crime Investigation Unit found that Rao had been comfortably running his extortion racket from Taloja Central Jail in Navi Mumbai, where he had been lodged for years. He had also been in direct touch with his boss Rajan, who was giving him instructions and seeking regular updates on the dhandha(business).

This revelation of the prison cell serving as Rao’s ‘office’, however, wasn’t an unexpected one. In 2015, a surprise check of Rao’s cell at Taloja had unearthed three mobile phones. The call records showed he had made hundreds of calls over the last three months, many of them to international numbers. The builder’s complaint in 2017 only further confirmed what the police already knew: prison is not even a speed bump for criminal elements who know their way around.

But it isn’t only established international criminal syndicates such as Rajan’s that run their operations from inside prisons. Local gangsters do it too. The name Uday Pathak, though not as widely known as Chhota Rajan or Dawood Ibrahim, still strikes fear in northern Mumbai’s Kurar and surrounding areas.

Turf control

In June 2011, Pathak and his gang kidnapped four men of a rival gang to avenge a petty insult. They took them to a forest area near Kurar, tortured and mutilated them, and finally burned their bodies. Pathak was arrested and was undergoing trial when he learned that some local toughs were trying to take over his area. He arranged for mobile phones and relayed instructions to his friends on the outside to make it known that he was still a force to reckon with. This was in mid-2015.

So, a few months later, in November 2015, a gunman walked up to a construction site in Kurar, fired a single round, dropped four pieces of paper on the ground and fled the scene. One of the notes had the name Uday Pathak scribbled on it, with a demand for money. The other three had the names of local political figures and businessmen, indicating that they too could be Pathak’s targets.

Other examples of hit jobs being ordered from prison include those of Yusuf Suleiman Kadri alias Yusuf Bachkana, also a Chhota Rajan aide, who, in 2013, ordered a hit on a Mumbai builder for refusing to pay extortion money; and Prashant Rao, an aide of gangster Yusuf Lakdawala, who instructed three of his henchmen to kill a businessman for the same reason in November 2016. Bachkana was then lodged in Hindalga Central Jail in Belgaum, while Rao was in Nashik Central Jail. Luckily, the targets in both the cases survived the attempts on their lives.

Clearly, these gangsters wouldn’t have been able to order hit jobs and communicate with their associates unless they had access to mobile phones — an access that is illegal. So how did they manage to get their hands on one?

In the sprawling 212-acre complex of Chennai’s Puzhal Central Prison, undertrials were being lined up for security check at the gate. Under the watchful eyes of the warders, they walked through the scanning machines one by one.

A prisoner who passed through the metal detector without triggering an alert caught the guards’ attention. There was something unusual about his gait. Suspecting foul play, prison officials searched him. They found nothing on his body. A careful examination of his footwear revealed that one of the shoes had been customised to accommodate mobile phone components. He had cut open the grooves in the sole to fix a handset, battery, and charger. He had been trying to walk without giving putting too much weight on one of the shoes, the one with the mobile phone parts. This ended up arousing suspicion and led to the exposé.

This is just one of several options used by prisoners to smuggle prohibited articles into prison. Despite thorough frisking, round-the-clock security, watch towers, and an extensive CCTV network, inmates sneak in contraband at will.

But it’s not only phones that are sneaked in. A 21-year-old ex-inmate who spent over six months in Delhi’s Rohini district jail in 2017 recalls how “everything that’s small in size” was smuggled inside. “Be it drugs in the form of powder or pills, mobile phones, or pocket knives.”

Three layers of checking

Sitting in his East Delhi home, the undertrial, who was in jail on charges of rash driving and attempt to commit culpable homicide, shares a story about how a fellow inmate managed to take a scalpel into Rohini prison.

“He is not a noted criminal,” he says, refusing to take names. “But he has been in and out of prison several times. All the warders knew him personally. Now, anyone who comes to the prison goes through three layers of checking before they meet the prisoner. But often, if a lawyer has been visiting regularly, he can get in without a thorough check,” he says. “You have to understand that there’s a nexus at play here.”

He said that in this particular case, the advocate had concealed the scalpel on the inside of the right arm of his black coat, after making an incision in the cloth. When he reached the room where the prisoner was waiting for him, he told the warder that he needed the prisoner to sign a document. “The prisoner signalled to the warder to let him sign in person instead of the document being carried to him by the jail staff. The warder agreed. The prisoner and the lawyer met and ‘shook hands’. And the scalpel passed from the lawyer to his client.

“The warder knew what was going on,” claims the young undertrial out on bail, adding, “They play a major role in the movement of contraband into and within the prison. Parents, relatives and other visitors can also transfer contraband like the lawyer did, provided they have connections.”

But the smuggling of contraband into jail premises doesn’t necessarily have to be through the main gate. Court meetings are a popular rendezvous used to transfer drugs and phones to prison inmates. If that proves too tough to manage, you could simply chuck stuff into the prison. If you have a good arm, you can fit whatever it is into a tennis ball and throw it, like a fielder at deep fine leg hurling the ball to the wicket-keeper.

“Some prison walls are accessible from the road,” points out Ajay Kashyap, Director-General of Tihar jail. “For instance, one of the boundary walls of Rohini jail is close to a flyover. Often, tennis or Cosco balls are recovered from the prison backyard. We have found them filled with a note or small articles,” says Kashyap, adding that if a prisoner is found with such balls, he is immediately punished. He either has some of his perks — such as what he can buy from the canteen — reduced, or is denied meetings with his family.

A.G. Maurya, former Deputy-Inspector General (DIG) of Prisons, Tamil Nadu, echoes Kashyap’s point that contraband is often thrown into the prison campus.

“Puzhal Central Prison is a huge campus. It has deserted places full of thick vegetation, where construction materials have been dumped, and even some unused buildings. When the prisoners go to the court for remand extension every 15 days, or meet visitors at the prison, they fix on a date and time when their contact will throw the parcel containing mobile phones, cigarettes or drugs. They even co-ordinate this using mobile phones already smuggled into the prison,” says Maurya, adding that inmates have full knowledge of the prison topography and the places that are beyond the reach of surveillance. “Sometimes they even pick up a parcel after a few days. The guards can’t patrol the whole campus all the time. A few places are not visible to the armed guards on watch towers.”

Lucrative barters

But why do inmates resort to such smuggling knowing full well that they will spend more time in jail if caught? Is it primarily to run their criminal activities, as in the case of the Rajan gang members? Is it to protect themselves? Or is it just addiction — either to mobile phones or drugs? Prison officials say that money is the big driver.

A cigarette that retails for ₹10 in the outside world is worth 10 times more inside the prison. “It is the addiction of other inmates to tobacco that makes some prisoners take the risk of smuggling. They get to make at least 10 times the money they invest in smuggling these substances. The income earned is paid to the families outside. This is a working revenue model,” says an official from Puzhal prison.

Prisons also tend to have a vibrant barter trade. An inmate might offer a pack of beedis in exchange for being able to make a phone call to his family. Another will offer WhatsApp on his phone for an hour in exchange of drugs. Sometimes, however, the motivation could be as simple as wanting to take a selfie.

President nod to ordinance providing death penalty for rape of girls below 12

The minimum punishment in case of rape of women has been increased.

President Ram Nath Kovind on Sunday promulgated an ordinance to pave way for providing stringent punishment, including death penalty, for those convicted of raping girls below the age of 12 years.

The Union Cabinet on Saturday approved the ordinance to allow courts to award death penalty to those convicted of raping girls under 12 years.

New fast-track courts will be set up to deal with such cases and special forensic kits for rape cases will be given to all police stations and hospitals in the long term, according to the Criminal Law (Amendment) Ordinance 2018.

It stipulates stringent punishment for perpetrators of rape, particularly of girls below 16 and 12 years. Death sentence has been provided for rapists of girls under 12 years, officials said quoting the ordinance.

The minimum punishment in case of rape of women has been increased from rigorous imprisonment of seven years to 10 years, extendable to life imprisonment, they said.

In case of rape of a girl under 16 years, the minimum punishment has been increased from 10 years to 20 years, extendable to imprisonment for rest of life, which means jail term till the convict’s “natural life".

The punishment for gangrape of a girl below 16 years will invariably be imprisonment for the rest of life of the convict, the officials said.

Stringent punishment for rape of a girl under 12 years has been provided with the minimum jail term being 20 years which may go up to life in prison or death sentence, they said.

The Indian Penal Code (IPC), the Evidence Act, the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act will now stand amended.

The measure also provides for speedy investigation and trial. The time limit for investigation of all cases of rape has been prescribed, which has to be mandatorily completed within two months.

The deadline for the completion of trial in all rape cases will be two months, the officials said. A six-month time limit for the disposal of appeals in rape cases has also been prescribed.

There will also be no provision for anticipatory bail for a person accused of rape or gang rape of a girl under 16 years.

Petrol price hit highest level, diesel at record high

Petrol price today hit ₹74.40 a litre — the highest level under the BJP-led government, while diesel rates touched a record high of ₹65.65, renewing calls for cut in excise duty to ease burden on consumers.

State-owned oil firms, which have been since June last year revising auto fuel prices daily, on Sunday raised petrol and diesel rates by 19 paisa per litre each in Delhi, according to a price notification.

The hike, necessitated due to firming international oil prices, comes on back of a 13 paisa increase in rates of petrol effected on Saturday and a 15 paisa hike in diesel, it said.

Petrol in the national capital now costs ₹74.40 a litre, the highest since September 14, 2013 when rates had hit ₹76.06. Diesel price at ₹65.65 are the highest ever.

Oil Ministry had earlier this year sought a reduction in excise duty on petrol and diesel to cushion the impact arising out of international oil rates but Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in his Budget presented on February 1 made no concessions.

India has the highest retail prices of petrol and diesel among South Asian nations as taxes account for half of the pump rates.

Mr. Jaitley had raised excise duty nine times between November 2014 and January 2016 to shore up finances as global oil prices fell, but then cut the tax just once in October last year by ₹2 a litre.

Subsequent to that excise duty reduction, the Centre had asked states to also lower VAT but just four of them — Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh reduced rates while others including BJP-ruled ones ignored the call.

The Central government had cut excise duty by ₹2 per litre in October 2017, when petrol price reached ₹70.88 per litre in Delhi and diesel ₹59.14. Because of the reduction in excise duty, diesel prices had on October 4, 2017 came down to ₹56.89 per litre and petrol to ₹68.38 per litre. However, a global rally in crude prices pushed domestic fuel prices far higher than those levels.

The October 2017 excise duty cut cost the government ₹26,000 crore in annual revenue and about ₹13,000 crore during the remaining part of the current fiscal year.

The government had between November 2014 and January 2016 raised excise duty on petrol and diesel on nine occasions to take away gains arising from plummeting global oil prices.

In all, duty on petrol rate was hiked by ₹11.77 per litre and that on diesel by 13.47 a litre in those 15 months that helped government’s excise mop up more than double to ₹242,000 crore in 2016-17 from ₹99,000 crore in 2014-15.

State-owned oil companies — Indian Oil Corporation, Bharat Petroleum Corporation and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation — in June last year dumped the 15-year old practice of revising rates on the 1st and 16th of every month. Instead, they adopted a daily price revision system to instantly reflect changes in cost. Since then prices are revised on a daily basis.

Indian classical music can be a spiritual experience but there is also a tradition of thought and artistic pursuit

Recently, a revered practitioner and guru of Indian classical music said that all such music is spiritual or enmeshed in spirituality. His comment left me baffled and mildly irritated. But of course, he is not the first to make such a proclamation.

While the need for musicians to embrace spirituality is unknown to me, it seems an easy escape route lest they be required to discuss performance, composition and musical philosophy. The myth of spirituality impedes conversations about form, origin and the presentation of performance. This creates a pliant audience that is expected to feel devotion and merely receive and exit rather than question their experience. The performance becomes a blindfold, not an enabling experience for the audience. The listening to and reception of this music could be a spiritual experience for some but Indian classical music is an evolved form of artistry. This evolution is largely credited to several practitioners and their significant interventions which demonstrate a tradition of thought and artistic pursuit.

The term ‘soch’ is thrown around in discussions on Indian classical music. If soch is a critical element of classical music, how could it be devoid of intellect? The same raga after all has been rendered differently by musicians hailing from one gharana. Indian classical musicians are simultaneously thinkers, philosophers, rule-benders and creators. Our conversations about intellectuals are largely dominated by poets, writers, painters, and filmmakers. Why are musicians seldom acknowledged in this category?

Kumar Gandharva perhaps got a fair deal — and rightly so — given his epochal music that so many were drawn to. Mallikarjun Mansur was adored for similar reasons. Nikhil Banerjee has a committed fan base amongst the intelligentsia. I know several scientists who are besotted by Malini Rajurkar. The avant-garde filmmaker Mani Kaul learnt Dhrupad and made a film on the subject. Kumar Shahani made Khayal Gatha (1989), which traces the history of Khayal singing. I still remember Satyajit Ray’s Jalsaghar (1958) for Begum Akhtar, and Govind Nihalani’s Drishti (1990) for its music composed by Kishori Amonkar featuring the lilting melody, “Megha Jhar Jhar Barasat Re.”

I wonder whether spirituality had any role to play in all of this. It was the sheer intellect of a group of artists who compelled attention to their art form and fostered new engagements. What is Ali Akbar’s Chandranandan if not the evidence of a great mind at work?

Only a perceptive mind could interpret poetic texts that way. Singing is also a way of enunciating your reading and interpretation of texts. At a recent concert in Pune, I heard the most sublime yet esoteric Marwa by the great sitarist Budhaditya Mukherjee. My friend exclaimed at the concert: “This is sheer intellect.” I couldn’t have said it better.

The consistent undermining of multilateralism by the U.S. must be countered

This week has seen rounds of tit-for-tat tariffs between the U.S. and China, set off by U.S. President Donald Trump levying import duties of 25% and 10% on American steel and aluminium imports, respectively, in early March. Mr. Trump, who has repeatedly used the U.S. trade deficit of over $500 billion as a barometer for the country’s lot in the international trade order, has railed against the U.S. being treated “unfairly” by its trading partners, often singling out China. While it is true that China produces approximately half the world’s steel and that the European Union, India and other countries have complained about international steel markets being flooded with Chinese steel, only 3% of U.S. steel is sourced from China. Interestingly, among those exempted from the tariffs are Canada and Mexico, top sources for U.S steel imports. Mr. Trump has linked the threat of tariffs to the North American Free Trade Agreement, a trade deal among the U.S., Canada and Mexico that Mr. Trump has pried open for renegotiation. Earlier this week China retaliated with tariffs that would impact $3 billion worth of American goods. This was followed by the U.S. proposing tariffs on more than $50 billion of Chinese goods, including in the aerospace, robotics and communication industries — the outcome of an investigation of several months into whether Chinese policies were placing unreasonable obligations on U.S. companies to transfer technology and hand over intellectual property while setting up shop in China. Beijing responded with a second round of proposed tariffs impacting a similar value of U.S. imports into China. Mr. Trump has now asked the U.S. Trade Representative to examine if an additional $100 billion worth of goods can be taxed.

Since the proposed tariffs have not kicked off, there may be room for negotiation. The economic ties between the countries are deep; China holds some $1.2 trillion in U.S. debt, and it is in everyone’s interest to avoid escalating matters. However, the larger cause for concern here is that Mr. Trump continues to undermine the World Trade Organisation and the international world trade order, now that it has served the West well and developing countries are in a significantly stronger position than when the WTO came into existence in 1995. Mr. Trump has pulled out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, is pushing changes to NAFTA and has withdrawn from the Paris Agreement to combat climate change. While large-scale protectionism and unilateralism may please some of Mr. Trump’s constituents in the short run, undermining existing rules arbitrarily serves no nation, including the U.S., in the long run. In the current climate, it is therefore especially important for India to be a good steward for responsible globalisation.

Tightening grip: on Hungary PM's re-election

Hungarian voters have handed Prime Minister Viktor Orbán a third term in office. In Sunday’s election, his right-wing Fidesz party and its Christian Democrat allies won around half the vote and two-thirds of the seats. This will give Mr. Orbán, who revels in his hyper-nationalist strongman image, the super-majority he needs to further tighten his grip on Hungary. The nationalist Jobbik party came in second with 20% of the vote, making it the principal opposition, with the Socialists getting 12% and the Green Party 7%. Though a high turnout of about 70% was expected to help the Opposition, the electoral process has been questionable. The technical administration of the elections was transparent and there was a wide range of candidates to choose from. But critics say the playing field was not fair, given media bias, a blurry line between party and government resources, and ‘intimidating and xenophobic rhetoric’. Over his previous terms Mr. Orbán had anointed himself as a spokesperson for ‘Christian Europe’, protecting it from what he sees as Islamisation — his campaign included posters of a stop sign superimposed on to an image of migrants walking across Europe. It is therefore not surprising that Fidesz performed strongly in small towns and rural areas, where Mr. Orbán’s anti-migrant message rang out the loudest. Over the last few years, as millions of migrants found their way to Europe, Mr. Orbán did not stop at just rhetoric. He refused to participate in the EU’s migrant resettlement plan and built a fence on Hungary’s boundary with Serbia and Croatia to keep them out.

He has also portrayed Hungary as a country at risk from foreign agents and has been accused of anti-Semitism. In a move seen as a bid to contain Hungarian-born Jewish American philanthropist George Soros’s work, Mr. Orbán introduced new funding laws for NGOs and passed a bill that would impact Mr. Soros’s Central European University. This is in addition to imposing controls on the media and tampering with the judicial system. A third term for Fidesz has implications not just for Hungary but for all of Europe. It is likely to polarise Western and Central European countries, which are wary of Brussels and want to see a directional change for Europe, closing it to migrants. In the European Parliament, the Fidesz is part of the largest party, the European People’s Party, a grouping of mostly centre-right parties that includes Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats; Mr Orbán’s victory could change the dynamics in this group, pulling some or all within it further right. Brussels has greeted the results with caution. But not all of Europe is worried; far-right leaders in France and Germany were quick to congratulate Mr. Orbán, and see in his victory a shot in the arm for their ideologies.