Kochakoch in a dilapidated prison

According to Yam Bahadur Wali, Acting Chief of District Jails, new arrivals and transferred prisoners should be kept in the same place. "The capacity of the prison is to hold 50 people, but currently 123 people are kept," he said.

According to him, the prison has the capacity to keep 35 men and 15 women, but there are 114 men and 9 women. He said that due to lack of space, detainees and prisoners had to be kept alone.

In Rolpa prison, the number of cases related to duty-related death is more. Then there are also a large number of extortionists. There are 36 cases related to death of duty and 24 cases related to extortion. There are 9 drug addicts and 5 extortionists.

Among the prisoners and detainees, 3 senior citizens of two cases who are 65 years old are also in prison. Three prisoners have been kept in prison, two of them for duty killing and one for the crime of rape.

According to the head of the prison, Wali, there is a risk of disease outbreak if more prisoners are kept in solitary confinement than the capacity. There is a risk of spreading infectious diseases during the summer season. There is a possibility that the outbreak of skin, respiratory and communicable diseases will increase if they have to be dragged and bandaged. Krishna Dangi, a health worker at Rolpa Hospital, who has been treating the inmates of the

prison, said. He said that when more prisoners are kept in low-capacity prisons, attention is not paid to cleanliness.

According to the prison administration, because the rooms are few and small, there is a situation where the accused of all kinds of cases have to be kept in one place, which has a negative effect on some of them. Health workers are of the opinion that there is a danger that the prisoners will also be affected because of the mental impact. Chief District Officer Khim Bahadur Rayamazhi said that there will be many problems if more prisoners are kept in the jail.

'It was too late to build a new prison building, many people were kept in solitary confinement in the old one,' said Prajia Rayamazhi, who was recently transferred to Rolpa.

This is the condition of the prison

Rolpa prison is about 42 years old. The current prison building has 73 more inmates than its capacity. Those who are serving punishment in various cases and some who have been remanded are kept. There has also been a problem in providing the basic needs of the prisoners inside the prison. The prison administration said that some facilities could not be provided even if they wanted to.

The district jail built in 2039 has always kept prisoners Kochakoch. There are 8 small rooms in the "D" category prison. Among them, 5 rooms are allocated for male and 3 rooms for female prisoners. The capacity of the jail is 50 people (35 men and 15 women).

There is also a difficult situation of having to keep prisoners facing different crimes together. The prison administration said that despite various problems, the prisoners had to be kept without solving them. The building is very miserable, dilapidated and the prisoners are crammed into cramped rooms. Toilets are simple and not big. 16/17 people should be kept in one room.

Jailer Wali says that until a new prison building is built, there is no option for the prisoners to remain locked up. "Right now there is no situation to transfer the prisoners to another place. There is no option to accommodate the prisoners brought from outside the district and the prisoners of this district.'' He said.

The construction of a new prison building in Rolpa Municipality-2 Reugha has started under the provincial government's budget, but it is still stalled. The plan to construct a building with an investment of crores has been stalled for four years. When Kulprasad KC elected from Rolpa was the Chief Minister of Lumbini Province, the campaign to build a new prison building was started. But it was not completed.

Due to the poor condition of the building, there have been incidents of inmates escaping by digging tunnels twice before. Some of the escapees have not yet been arrested by the police. Even now, the prison administration is holding more prisoners than its capacity in that building.

There is also a case of suicide inside the prison. Two years ago, one of the two prisoners brought from Banke jail who changed their names committed suicide by hanging. After the incident took a big shape, an investigation was started from the central level. The Nepalgunj office team of the National Human Rights Commission, which monitored the incident at the time, concluded that the state did not pay attention to the condition of the prisoners from the point of view of human rights.

The conclusion of the commission was that prisoners should be treated with humane services. Due to the arbitrary detention of prisoners in prisons, access to justice has not been established. Human rights advocate Vasant Gautam, who has been monitoring the prison, said that the inmates committed suicide because they could not keep the prison safe. Sundar Harijan of Banke committed suicide two years ago inside Rolpa Jail. Gautam asks to be aware that the death of Sundar Harijan and other similar incidents may happen again if the state is not careful and responsible.