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All 17 prisoners who escaped from a prison in India’s Tamil Nadu state have been recaptured, ending a 36-hour search, according to the BBC.
The escape began on Monday night at a prison in Thekkampatti, in Theni district. The prisoners overpowered guards and fled; one of the 18 men in the cell returned to the prison immediately.
Police said the episode began at 22:30 local time on Monday, when one prisoner pretended to have a seizure. Other inmates called for help, and a prison official who responded was overpowered. The prisoners then left their cell, reportedly attacked two more guards and took keys that they used to open the main gate.
Several prison staff were injured. Tamil Nadu Police said nine employees had been suspended over alleged negligence.
Prison overcrowding and security review
The prison was holding 334 inmates despite having capacity for 200, police said. All those who escaped were undertrials — prisoners awaiting or undergoing trial — and 18 had been held in one cell.
Only four guards were on duty during the escape, far below the 34 that would have been needed to meet the state’s recommended ratio of one guard for every six inmates at the prison’s approved capacity of 200.
Sandeep Rathore, Tamil Nadu’s Director General of Police for Prisons, described the escape as the result of “human error”. He said security procedures had been breached as prisoners passed through a three-tier barrier staffed by security personnel.
Police sources told BBC Tamil that investigators were considering whether some prison officials had colluded with the escapees. Rathore said prisons across the state would be audited to check whether rules were being followed.
Search ends with prisoners in high-security facilities
Police called in forces from across the state. The department said drone surveillance, CCTV footage analysis, technology and police efforts played a key role in the search.
Four men were arrested at a bus station in a nearby village, and a fifth was caught while travelling in a tuk-tuk. A drone search of a forest near the prison led to the arrest of eight more. Police said two others were captured with the help of drone surveillance, while the final two surrendered on Wednesday.
PTI reported that all 17 recaptured prisoners had been transferred to high-security correctional prisons.
The incident recalled a major jailbreak in Tamil Nadu in 1995, when 43 suspected militants escaped from a special camp through a 153-foot-long tunnel dug beneath a historic fort. Some were never recaptured.
The escape has also renewed discussion about overcrowding in India’s prisons. The National Crime Records Bureau’s latest Prison Statistics India report, published in 2023, recorded a national prison occupancy rate of 120.1%.
Undertrial prisoners account for more than 73% of India’s total prison population, according to the data. Human rights groups and legal experts have raised concerns that delays in investigations and trials can leave people behind bars for years.
