Meghalaya jail authorities are compiling the list of Under Trial Prisoners (UTPs) to facilitate the Meghalaya Legal Aid Forum (MLAF) to extend the legal services to those prisoners who cannot afford to obtain bail due to financial constraints.
As per the understanding arrived by the MLAF functionaries with the Director General of Prisons, Kulbir Kishen, jail authorities have started the initial process before finalising the names of inmates by the first week of August. There are hard-core criminals lodged in the four different jails in the state but 70%-75% of the prisoners continue to languish in prisons due to their inability to afford lawyers. This has resulted in overstaying of inmates and congestion in jails.
Chairperson of MLAF, Fennela Lyngdoh Nonglait met the DG prisons and offered the Forum’s legal services to the inmates. The functionary of MLAF Rebinna Subbah said the DG has accepted the offer. However, the first target of the MLAF is the overcrowded Shillong district jail, which houses more than 300 odd prisoners against its capacity of 135. Subbah said that after Shillong, the forum will move to other jails in the state.
The DG (Prisons) could not be contacted but a senior functionary in the Prisons department said, “This is the step that the prison department has been waiting”. “Legal aid to the UTPs will not only help petty criminals who are overstaying in jails due to financial constraints to hire a lawyer but it will also greatly help in proper management of the jails”, stated a jail authority on condition of anonymity.