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EM Bureau
Dimapur, Sep. 14 (EMN): A total of four prisoners have died while in judicial custody during 2021 in Nagaland, while six prisoners escaped from judicial custody in the same year.
The four, who died in judicial custody, were all natural deaths and out of the six escapees, five were re-arrested, as per the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) report.
According to the report, a total of 2,116 prisoners died while in judicial custody during 2021 in the country, out of which, 1,879 were natural deaths. It stated that 185 deaths were due to un-natural causes and 52 deaths were reported as causes not known.
As per Northeast state-wise reports of deaths of inmates in prisons during 2021, Assam reported the highest number of deaths with 23, out of which 21 died due to natural causes and 2 were un-natural deaths.
Meghalaya reported seven deaths out of which five were due to natural causes and two were reported as un-natural deaths. Mizoram and Nagaland reported four deaths each. Tripura reported three inmates death due to natural causes and Sikkim with two. Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur reported zero death of inmates.
Number of deaths due to natural causes increased from 1,642 in 2020 to 1,879 in 2021, an increase of 14.4% while number of un-natural deaths in prisons decreased by 2.1% from 189 in 2020 to 185 in 2021.
Out of the 1,879 natural deaths, there were 1,796 deaths due to illness and 83 deaths due to ageing, while Uttar Pradesh has reported the highest number of deaths due to natural causes (439) followed by Bihar (173) and Madhya Pradesh (151) during 2021.
During the year 2021, 235 prisoners were reported as escaped from judicial custody out of which 82 prisoners escaped from inside prison premises and 153 prisoners escaped while they were outside prison premises, while 120 persons were re-arrested.