In order to stop prisoners or prison staff from sneaking in drugs into the prisons, body and baggage scanners are being installed at prisons, Brig Gen Syed Iftekhar Uddin, inspector general (IG) of prisons, said yesterday.

“We've imported body scanners for the first time in Bangladesh and work is underway to install the scanners at a number of major jails like the ones at Keraniganj, Kashimpur and Narayanganj,” he said.

The IG prisons said this while addressing reporters at the prison directorate to brief them about “Prison Week 2018” that would begin tomorrow (March 20).

President Abdul Hamid is scheduled to inaugurate the week's events at Kashimpur jail complex.

Plagued by limited personnel and resources, the prison authorities are having difficulties containing drug abuse by inmates as a large number of them, over 35 percent, are jailed for drug-related offences. 

Out of a total 77,124 prisoners in 68 prisons in the country, 35.97 percent or more than 27,741 were imprisoned for narcotics abuse.  

The inmates have been resorting to innovative methods to smuggle in various drugs, especially Yaba, into the prisons, said the prison chief, adding that many of them were caught with Yaba put in polythene pouches that they had swallowed while they were taken outside the prisons for court appearance. 

An inmate was recently caught after smuggling in 350 pieces of Yaba this way, the IG prisons said. 

“So far, we've suspended 20 members of the jail staff over the past one year after finding their involvement with narcotics.” They were handed over to police and criminal cases have been filed against them, he added.

In response to a query regarding the de-radicalisation programme for 577 militants imprisoned at different jails, he said till date 20 jail officials have received training from a government organisation under a project to de-radicalise the militants.