Jailbird For A Day

Ever wondered what it’s like to be behind bars? Surviving with the bare minimum, excluding your freedom? The experience of living in a jail is now up for grabs as a part of a tourism programme in one of Telangana’s oldest prisons. Go, ‘Feel The Jail’

- Nandini R Penna

Two Malaysian tourists and a jeweller from Kerala flew all the way to Hyderabad to get themselves locked up in a jail in Sangareddy. No, they are not criminals! Nor do they have any arrest warrants in their names. They just wanted to ‘Feel The Jail’.

The Malaysians – Ng Inn Wo, a dentist and Ong Boon Tek, a businessman – wanted to experience the thrill of being locked away with no connection to the outside world. While the flamboyant and adventurous sportsperson Boby Chemmanur, who arrived later with his two friends, wanted to experience how it feels if one’s freedom is taken away. Boby had already been disappointed when the police officers in Kerala said they could not allow him to experience the life in jail unless he committed a crime. Naturally then, he jumped at the opportunity provided by the Telangana Prison Department with their never-heard-before jail tourism programme – Feel The Jail.

The brainchild of Vinoy Kumar Singh, Director-General of Telangana State Prisons Department and Correctional Services, ‘Feel The Jail’ programme is in great demand among tourists. Singh explains, “When I was working in Sangareddy, I knew about its District Central Jail in Medak, which was built by the Nizams in 1796. In 1987, the new jail was built and the old jail was abandoned. We decided to convert it into a heritage structure and a tourist attraction.”