'Send Them To Andaman': Probe Agency's Request For Dreaded Gangsters

The National Investigation Agency today wrote to the Home Ministry regarding shifting dreaded gangsters from North Indian prisons to Andaman and Nicobar Islands, sources said. The letter mentioned shifting 10-12 notorious criminals from Delhi's Tihar Jail, which made headlines recently for the gruesome murder of a criminal inside its premises. The probe agency said gangs are being run from inside North Indian prisons.

Since Andaman and Nicobar Islands is a Centre-administered region, no permission would be required as needed in other states.

This is NIA's second letter to the Home Ministry regarding the issue.

The probe agency wrote to the ministry a few months back requesting that 25 notorious criminals, including Lawrence Bishnoi, accused in the murder of Punjabi singer Sidhu Moose Wala, be shifted to South Indian prisons.

Delhi's Tihar Jail also wrote to the ministry after the murder of jailed gangster Tillu Tajpuriya, requesting that dreaded gangsters be shifted to prisons in other states.

The Tihar Jail administration argued that it has 16 jails under it, with a capacity of just 10,000, while more than 20,000 criminals are lodged there. Some of them are notorious, causing concerns about law and order, the jail authorities said.

Tihar Jail has replaced over 2,000 exhaust fans with plastic ones, and installed lights at dark spots after the horrific murder of Tillu Tajpuriya.

Tajpuriya was killed with "improvised weapons" allegedly by four members of the rival Gogi gang who stabbed him "92 times". The four attackers, lodged on the first floor of the prison, cut an iron grille and used bedsheets to climb down, police had said.