Patna: Gangsters serving jail terms in Bihar are busy saving the lives of people in the state in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.
The outlaws convicted by courts in various criminal cases are now stitching personal protective equipment (PPE) kits for frontline workers, including police personnel. Most of the convicts doing this work are lodged in north Bihar’s Motihari Central Jail and have volunteered to prepare PPE kits, which are much in demand.
Murder convict, Mohammad Akbar, 50, is at the forefront of this enterprise. Akbar was handed a life sentence in a murder case four years back. “He (Akbar) is an excellent tailor. He learnt the art of stitching from a fellow prisoner while in jail and is using most of his time stitching these PPE kits. He has impressed us all with his devotion,” Motihari Jail superintendent Bidu Kumar told the media on Friday.
‘Khadi’ clothes
Another prisoner, Mohammad Isha, who was sentenced to ten years of rigorous imprisonment, is doing the same along with many other inmates. Jail officials said the prisoners have already supplied the first lot of 40 PPE kits — each costing Rs500 (Dh24.5) — to local police personnel. Now, they are readying another 40 PPE kits, which will be handed over to police officials deployed in various police stations along the Indo-Nepal border.
The prisoners have already prepared 5,000 facemasks made of comfortable ‘khadi’ (hand-spun cotton cloth) clothes and as many hand gloves. Jail officials said the prisoners are preparing around 1,000 face masks daily. Currently, a total of 2,195 prisoners are lodged in the Motihari Central Jail. Of them, 800 are engaged in preparing facemasks.
Ten-fold hike in cases
The prisoners indeed deserve kudos for their wonderful efforts to protect people from coronavirus, given the way positive cases of Covid-19 have surged in Bihar. The number of cases crossed the 6,000-mark on Friday.
According to a report from the state Health Department on Friday, the deadly virus has infected 6,043 people so far and claimed 35 lives in Bihar. Health officials said the cases registered a ten-fold hike in the past 40 days — particularly after migrant labourers started returning home by Shramik Special (Labourer Special) trains from May 1 onwards from their respective places of work in other states.
