Jail staff carp over MMRDA decision

The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA)’s request to the state to not insist on the MMRDA to install steel view cutters on the 10.24 km phase-2 of the monorail corridor between Wadala and Jacob Circle, facing the high security Arthur Road prison, has not go down well with senior jail authorities.

The idea behind the demand for installing view cutters is to block the view of the jail premises so that anti-social elements do not plan any kind of attack on it from the monorail. Prison authorities are of the view that the MMRDA has to install steel view cutters, as that is the base on which the Maharashtra home department had, in 2010, granted permission to the body to install view cutters along the Sane Guruji Marg near Arthur Road jail. However, the MMRDA is of the view that the insistence by the prison authorities to install view cutters is not only unfeasible and but also expensive.

The construction of monorail corridor on the stretch was halted by prison authorities back in 2010, as prison authorities felt that the elevated monorail corridor is very close to Arthur Road jail, which is a high security prison where several high-profile inmates having underworld connections are lodged. The prison also houses Lashkar-e-Tayyaba handler, Abu Jundal, alleged mastermind of the 26/11 terror attacks.

A senior prison official, requesting anonymity said, “MMRDA was granted No Objection Certificate (NOC) only when it had agreed to comply with conditions which included construction of increasing the height of the prison wall, two watch towers inside the prison premises and construct steel view cutters beside the tracks to obstruct the internal view of the prison premises. It is a clear violation on the part of the MMRDA to now come up with a request of not installing steel view cutters.”

According to the MMRDA, the monorail takes only 15 seconds to pass through the prison premises and the idea of installing steel view cutters is “extravagant.” However, former state director general of police, P.S. Pasricha, said, “I do not think that installing a view cutter is going to be that much expensive.”