Lucknow(IANS) : In a bizarre incident, an under-trial bludgeoned a fellow prisoner to death in the Lucknow district jail Wednesday.
Stated to be mentally imbalanced, Navrang Singh, 27, smashed the head of 30-year-old Onkar Singh with a brick while the latter was asleep.
“Onkar was fast asleep, when Navrang attacked him; the victim simply bled to death before any help could come from other inmates or jail officials,” District Magistrate Chandra Bhanu told IANS.
Navrang was jailed Nov 4, 2006 for murdering a neighbour in Nagram village of Lucknow district while Onkar was undergoing trial for petty thefts.
Bhanu said “gross neglect” on the part of the concerned jail officials was behind the incident. “We have already ordered suspension of the deputy jailor, the jail doctor and the cell guard.”
“It was on account of Navrang’s mental illness that he was kept in the isolation ward of the jail hospital. However, in the absence of the regular jail doctor, Vishnu Dev, his substitute Prem Prakash shifted him to the general hospital ward, without realising the potential danger to which he was exposing other occupants,” he said.
Bhanu said: “Preliminary inquiries have revealed that Navrang attacked Onkar without any provocation. How he got a brick which he used as his weapon is still being investigated.”
A formal investigation into the incident has been entrusted to an additional district magistrate.