By IANS
Patna: Mobile phone call records of convicted Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) MP Mohammed Shahabuddin will be checked to find out the names of the people he was in contact with while in Bihar’s Siwan jail.
A day after mobile phones were recovered from Shahabuddin and his supporters, the Siwan district administration Wednesday said it would investigate how the RJD leader got the phones inside the jail and who were the people in touch with him.
“The printouts of mobile phone call records recovered from Shahabuddin and his supporters will clear the matter,” Siwan District Magistrate S.K. Mall said.
In a surprise raid Tuesday night in Siwan district jail, about 150 km from here, the district and prison authorities seized two mobile phones from Shahabuddin’s cell. Besides, two mobile sets and four chargers were recovered from his supporters in the adjoining cell, jail officials said.
Mall said the administration had received complaints that Shahabuddin was using mobile phones inside the jail. “This is a major prison offence and we are looking at all legal aspects before a case is lodged against the MP and others found violating jail manuals,” he said.
Prison manual empowers the district magistrate to order additional imprisonment of up to two years to an inmate caught violating it.
A special court inside the Siwan jail awarded life imprisonment to Shahabuddin May 8 for the murder of a political activist in 1999.
This was the second time Shahabuddin has been sentenced in a criminal case by the special court. In March, he was convicted of attacking the Communist Party of India-Marxist-Leninist (CPI-ML) office in Siwan town Sep 19, 1998.
A Lok Sabha member from Siwan since 1996, Shahabuddin is involved in 40 criminal cases, including those of murder, abduction and possession of illegal arms.
He was arrested in Delhi more than a year ago following seizure of arms from his ancestral home in Siwan.
Earlier this year, the Patna High Court directed that all pending cases against him be tried by a special court set up by the state government in Siwan jail.