New Delhi — Entry of journalists, NGO activists and filmmakers into jails has been banned by the government, except under special requests, said senior home ministry officials.
The decision comes after a series of incidents of jail inmates being interviewed by journalists including British film-maker Leslee Udwin who made a documentary on the December 16 gangrape case which sparked a huge controversy as she interviewed the convicts in Delhi’s Tihar jail.
An advisory has been sent to all states and Union Territories by Joint Secretary in the Home Ministry, Kumar Alok, saying, “No private individual, press, NGO or company should ordinarily be allowed entry into the prison for the purposes of doing research, making documentaries, writing articles or interviews etc.”
The state governments may however allow entry if they feel that the purpose is to create a positive social impact, or the proposed work is related to prison reforms or the authorities themselves decide to invite press, film-makers to cover a particular event.
If any permission is granted by the head of state prison department, then the visitor will have to pay a security deposit of Rs one lakh.They will only be allowed with a handy-cam, camera or tape recorder, but mobile phones, papers, book and pens will not be allowed. Foreigners need to give a 60 days notice before making any visit, NDTV reported.
The jail superintendent himself has to be present at the spot. In case he is absent, the next senior-most officer must accompany the visitor and should intervene on the spot if the officer feels that a certain video clip or an interview being conducted is not desirable.
The advisory also said that no videography or photography should be allowed which may create potential security risk or social or communal disturbance.
“After the visit is complete, the visitor shall hand over all their equipment like handy-cams, dicta-phone, camera, tape recorder or any other equipment to the jail superintendent for a period of three days. All precautions should be taken to ensure that the visitor does not leave the jail premises with the recordings,” the advisory said.
Jail authorities shall then view all the recordings carefully and can delete any objectionable portion before returning the equipment to the visitor.
“The final version of the documentary, film, research paper, articles or books to be released, published has to be submitted to the concerned state government official for a final no objection certificate,” said the advisory.