6 murder convicts break out of Rongyek jail

GANGTOK, 11 Jan: Six convicts serving life sentences for different cases of murders in the State escaped from the State prison at Rongyek here today. The daring escape took place in broad daylight between 1 to 2 pm this afternoon and in all likelihood it was a pre-planned operation.
The 6 convicts scaled the 20 foot jail walls and fled into the wilderness outside. One the convicts who escaped is Puran Rai; this is his second jailbreak. He had escaped in the year 2004 with Rakesh Rai, aka ‘Spiderman’, only to be re-arrested. He was a co-accused in the Sikkim Hotel [PS Road, Gangtok] double murder case of November 2003.
The 6 escaped inmates are: Puran Rai, who originally hails from Darjeeling; Rudra Thapa, a Nepal national arrested by the Jorethang police in the year 2004; Yogesh Karki of Soreong and arrested there in 2003; Shekhar Roy of Hidayat Nagar, Jalpaiguri and arrested in the year 2006 by Sadar police; Laxuman Maley of Chama Tea Estate, Jaigoan and arrested in the year 2005 by Singtam police and Prasanta Sarkar of Raiganj, West Bengal and arrested in the year 2003 by Namchi police.
In a move to apprehend the jailbirds, two platoons of Sikkim Armed Police have been deployed along with 1 platoon of the Home Guards.
ASP Jails, Sonam Bhutia, informed that the police personnel are engaged in combing operations even as all the police Check-Posts, especially those at Rongli and Rangpo, alerted on the incident and kept on high alert. In addition, police stations all across the state and also in Kalimpong, Darjeeling and Jalpaiguri have also been alerted.
The Commandant, SAP, in coordination with the Jail police, Home Guards and other police personnel are engaged in the combing operations on the Assam Lingzey areas adjoining the Rongyek jail. While the SAP are engaged in the operations from Rongyek downwards, the Home Guards are engaged in similar operations from the Bhusuk khola upwards towards Rongyek.
The police believe that the escapees had hatched the plan much in advance.
Convicts serving life terms in the jail are given vocational work within the campus to keep them engaged and these include such works as dairy farming, agriculture, bakery, carpentry etc. All six were engaged in vocational work today, and at 1 pm, as usual, they break for tea. The 8 to 10 feet corridor between their vocational cell and the kitchen is always unguarded and it was during this tea break that the 6 made their way to the playground slightly higher up.
There were no games scheduled for today so there was no security at the ground either, it is learnt.  Here, they managed to take out the football goal posts which they tied together with ropes to make a ladder with the help of pieces of wood and other material they had procured from their workshop. This was hitched to the jail wall and the barbed wiring on the top of the walls was cut with pliers. The various tools they used were taken from their vocational work cell where the inmates are provided with various tools for their works.
After scaling the wall, they jumped down the other side where the ground is uneven thus making the leap manageable. It was only at the end of the tea break at 2 pm that one of the guards on duty noticed that a ladder had been hitched to the wall and alerted other personnel.
The State jail has its own personnel called wardens who are the supervisors inside the jail complex while the jail boundary is manned by SAP personnel. The transportation of under trials to and from the courts is the responsibility of Reserve Lines, Sikkim Police.
Immediately after the escape was noticed, all wardens, including those who were off-duty, were called in, the police headquarters informed and all police stations and check posts alerted. Photos of the escaped inmates have also been circulated widely. The police believe that the escapees have made their way down Bhusuk khola and will move in that direction generally but will not move about at night when it will be too cold.