Kannur/Thrissur: Kerala Jail DGP Rishiraj Singh has commenced his new stint with a bang.
He led a raid personally at the Central Prison, Kannur, in the wee hours of Saturday. The officials and inmates of the jail here were stunned when senior police officers came in with the DGP.
Mobile phones, cannabis, nicotine, cash, coconut scraper, iron rod, SIM cards, phone batteries and radio were seized from the prisoners' cells at the Kannur Central Jail.
Rishiraj Singh was accompanied by range IG Ashok Yadav and SP Pratheesh Kumar. A team of 150 police personnel took part in the unexpected raid.
Another raid was meanwhile carried out at the same time at Central Prison, Viyyur, in Thrissur by Commissioner Yatheesh Chandra.
Two smartphones were seized from Shafi, an accused in the T P Chandrasekharan murder case, from his cell at the Viyyur jail.
Mobile phones were found with Shafi during the raids conducted at the jails in Viyyur in 2017 and in Kozhikode in 2014.
The senior officers had conducted raids after complaints were raised about the lawlessness in the jails. It was earlier reported that many inmates at the Kannur central jail possessed mobile phones.
In a major reshuffle in its police force a fortnight ago, Rishiraj Singh, who was the excise commissioner, was named as the DGP (Jail).
The three central prisons in Kerala are at Kannur, Viyyur (Thrissur) and Poojappura (Thiruvananthapuram).
