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Tihar Prisons

Prison centre in Delhi, India

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The prison is styled as a correctional institution. Its main objective is to convert its inmates into ordinary members of society by providing them with useful skills, education, and respect for the law. It aims to improve the inmates' self-esteem and strengthen their desire to improve. To engage, rehabilitate, and reform its inmates, Tihar uses music therapy, which involves music training sessions and concerts. The prison has its own radio station, run by inmates. There is also a prison industry within the walls, manned wholly by inmates, which bears the brand Tihar.

History

Origin

Originally, Tihar was a maximum-security prison run by the State of Punjab. In 1966 control was transferred to the National Capital Territory of Delhi. Beginning in 1984, additional facilities were constructed, and the complex became Tihar Prison, also the largest jail in India.

Reforms

Under the charge of IPS officer Kiran Bedi, when she was Inspector General of Prisons, she instituted a number of prison reforms at Tihar, including changing its name to Tihar Ashram. She also instituted a Vipassana meditation program for both staff and inmates; initial classes were taught by S. N. Goenka. The prison has also produced an inmate who passed the UPSC civil service examinations.

Many of the inmates continue their higher education through distance education. The campus placement program was launched in 2011 for the rehabilitation of inmates about to complete their sentences. In 2014, a recruitment drive led to 66 inmates selected on the basis of their good conduct, received job offers with salaries up to ₹35,000 (US$360) per month, from as many as 31 recruiters, which included educational institutions, NGOs and private companies.

Escapes

In 1986, Charles Sobhraj, a French serial killer, threw a big party for his prison guards and fellow inmates, drugged them with sleeping pills and walked out of the Tihar prison in March.

In 2004, Sher Singh Rana, who had been arrested for the murder of Phoolan Devi in 2001, escaped from Tihar jail in February. He was arrested again in 2006, in Kolkata.

In 2015, two prisoners who were waiting for their trial in Tihar jail escaped through a tunnel in June.

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