Probe flags lapses in security for inmates, slow response by police

Days after 24-year-old undertrial Aman Poddar was beaten to death inside a lock-up at the Saket courts complex, a preliminary report has flagged serious lapses in security protocols—chief among them being the failure to segregate rival inmates and delayed police response to the fatal assault.

- Arnabjit Sur

NEW DELHI:

The internal report, compiled after meetings between principal district and sessions judge Shail Jain, senior south district police officers, officials from Delhi Police's Third Battalion (which secures the court complex), and representatives of the Saket Bar Association, was submitted to the chief justice of the Delhi high court on Monday.

According to officials familiar with its contents, the most glaring procedural lapse was the decision to place Poddar in the same cell—Kharja No. 5—as his alleged assaulters, Jitender Singh and Jaidev Chand, despite prior records indicating hostility between them.