A couple of pictures of an Indore district prison's jailer talking to a woman lodged there after arrest in the honey trap case have gone viral on social media, prompting the Madhya Pradesh prisons department to order a probe how and who clicked the photos 'secretly'.
As photography is prohibited inside the prison, a senior official said they suspect that one of the jail staff members clicked the pictures "secretly".
In the photographs, jailer K K Kulshreshta is seen sitting on a chair outside the video-conference room in the women's wing of the district jail and talking to the honey trap case accused Shweta Vijay Jain.
Talking to PTI after visiting the jail on Thursday, Deputy Inspector General (Prisons) Sanjay Pandey said, "We have taken cognisance of these photos. Indore Central Jail Superintendent Rakesh Kumar Bhangre has been ordered to conduct a probe into the matter of how the photos were secretly clicked inside the prison."
Bhangre has been directed to conduct the probe within a week and submit the report, as then only it will be known how the photos were clicked in a secret manner, Pandey said.
He, however, said there is nothing objectionable seen in the photographs as it is the jailer's duty to interact with inmates to know about proper arrangements in the jail.
"Prima facie, it appears a jail staffer could be involved in the clicking of the photographs and these going viral on social media. It is a crime to take photos like this in the jail premises with an electronic equipment," he said.
The official also said he visited the jail to review the steps being taken for the prevention of Covid-19 in the premises, after nearly 50 inmates contracted the disease in the last one week.
Five women, including Shweta Vijay Jain, and their driver were arrested from Bhopal in September 2019 in connection with the honey-trap case.
As per the charge sheet filed by police in the case on December 16, 2019, the gang was allegedly involved in trafficking of women and trapping persons on higher positions in the government by capturing their intimate moments with these women by secret cameras, taking screenshots of their chats and other objectionable material to blackmail them.
The gang also allegedly used to get transfers/postings done through the trapped officials by blackmailing them to earn illegal gratification, the charge sheet said.
The case is at present pending before a district court.