Naini Central Prison or Naini Jail at

Naini Naini (also known as Naini Industrial Area) is an industrial township of Prayagraj in Prayagraj district, Uttar Pradesh, India. By the 1950s Naini was established as the chief industrial area of the city. History Naini had a prison, Naini Cen ...

Prayagraj Prayagraj (, ; ISO 15919, ISO: ), formerly and colloquially known as Allahabad, is a metropolis in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.The other five cities were: Agra, Kanpur, Kanpur (Cawnpore), Lucknow, Meerut, and Varanasi, Varanasi (Benar ...

, is one of the most important

correctional Institution A prison, also known as a jail, gaol, penitentiary, detention center, correction center, correctional facility, or remand center, is a facility where people are imprisoned under the authority of the state, usually as punishment for various crim ...

s in

Uttar Pradesh Uttar Pradesh ( ; UP) is a States and union territories of India, state in North India, northern India. With over 241 million inhabitants, it is the List of states and union territories of India by population, most populated state in In ...

, built during the

British Raj The British Raj ( ; from Hindustani language, Hindustani , 'reign', 'rule' or 'government') was the colonial rule of the British The Crown, Crown on the Indian subcontinent, * * lasting from 1858 to 1947. * * It is also called Crown rule ...

Independence movement

The prison played a large role in the pre-independence era, when many freedom fighters, including

Motilal Nehru Motilal Nehru (6 May 1861 – 6 February 1931) was an Indian lawyer, activist, and politician affiliated with the Indian National Congress. He served as the Congress President twice, from 1919 to 1920 and from 1928 to 1929. He was a patriarch ...

(1930), Pt.

Jawaharlal Nehru Jawaharlal Nehru (14 November 1889 – 27 May 1964) was an Indian anti-colonial nationalist, secular humanist, social democrat, and statesman who was a central figure in India during the middle of the 20th century. Nehru was a pr ...

(the first

prime minister of India The prime minister of India (ISO 15919, ISO: ) is the head of government of the Republic of India. Executive authority is vested in the prime minister and his chosen Union Council of Ministers, Council of Ministers, despite the president of ...

Govind Ballabh Pant Govind Ballabh Pant (10 September 1887 – 7 March 1961) was an Indian freedom fighter and the first chief minister of Uttar Pradesh. Alongside Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Vallabh Bhai Patel, Pant was a key figure in the movement for ...

, Narendra Dev,

Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Rafi Ahmed Kidwai (18 February 1894 – 24 October 1954) was a politician, an Indian independence activist and a socialist. Kidwai served as a Minister of Communications in the first Cabinet of Independent India (First Nehru Ministry). He ha ...

Hasrat Mohani Syed Fazl-ul-Hasan (1 January 1875 – 13 May 1951), known by his Takhallus, pen-name Hasrat Mohani, was an List of Indian independence activists, Indian independence activist and a poet in Urdu. .Together with Swami Kumaranand, he is regarded ...

were imprisoned there during

Indian independence movement The Indian independence movement was a series of historic events in South Asia with the ultimate aim of ending British Raj, British colonial rule. It lasted until 1947, when the Indian Independence Act 1947 was passed. The first nationalistic ...

. During his stay, Nehru wrote a series of letters to his young daughter Indira from the prison, starting on her thirteenth birthday until 9 August 1933. These were later published as ''Glimpses of World History.'' On 1 March 1941,

Mahatma Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (2October 186930January 1948) was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalism, anti-colonial nationalist, and political ethics, political ethicist who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the successful Indian ...

visited the prison, to see imprisoned freedom fighters

Vijayalakshmi Pandit Vijay Lakshmi Pandit (''née'' Swarup Nehru; 18 August 1900 – 1 December 1990) was an Indian freedom fighter, diplomat and politician. She served as the 8th President of the United Nations General Assembly from 1953 to 1954, the first woman a ...

and

Abul Kalam Azad Abul Kalam Ghulam Muhiyuddin (11 November 188822 February 1958), better known as Maulana Azad and sometimes referred as Abul Kalam Azad, was an Indian politician, writer and activist of the Indian independence movement. A senior leader of t ...

. Indira Gandhi herself (later

) was arrested along with her husband

Feroze Gandhi Feroze Jehangir Gandhi (12 September 1912 – 8 September 1960) was an Indian freedom fighter, politician and journalist. He served as a member of the provincial parliament between 1950 and 1952, and later a member of the Lok Sabha, the Lower ...

and spent her prison term in Naini, from 11 September 1942 until 13 May 1943.

Issues

The prison has witnessed security concerns as it houses not just a few members of parliament, but sharpshooters and gang lords from

Purvanchal Purvanchal () is the region of eastern Uttar Pradesh. Purvanchal is also a proposed state in India, encompassing 32 eastern districts of Uttar Pradesh. The proposal, introduced in the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly in 2011 by then Chief ...

, including Sujeet Belwa and Rajesh Yadav, and rumours that gang wars were being raged from inside the prison. Many militants belonging to the

Jaish-e-Mohammad Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) is a Pakistani Deobandi jihadist Islamist militant group active in Kashmir.: "as soon as he was freed, Masood Azhar was back in Pakistan where he founded a new jihadist movement, Jaish-e-Mohammed, which became one of ...

and

Lashkar-e-Taiba Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) is a Pakistani Islamism, Islamist militant organization driven by a Salafi jihadism, Salafi jihadist ideology. The organisation's primary stated objective is to merge the whole of Kashmir with Pakistan. It was founded in 19 ...

are also imprisoned here. In 2008, 97 prisoners who had already completed their sentences wrote to the

president of India The president of India (ISO 15919, ISO: ) is the head of state of the Republic of India. The president is the nominal head of the executive, the first citizen of the country, and the commander-in-chief, supreme commander of the Indian Armed ...

asking to be

euthanised Animal euthanasia (euthanasia from ; "good death") is the act of killing an animal humanely, most commonly with injectable drugs. Reasons for euthanasia include incurable (and especially painful) conditions or diseases, lack of resources to con ...

. That same year, 17 inmates died over a period of five months, and as many as 239 inmates were found to be suffering from ailments like tuberculosis, scabies and water-borne diseases, forcing the government to implement improved health services available to the incarcerated.IG Prison inspects Naini jail

The Times of India ''The Times of India'' (''TOI'') is an Indian English-language daily newspaper and digital news media owned and managed by the Times Group. It is the List of newspapers in India by circulation, third-largest newspaper in India by circulation an ...

, 17 Mar 2009.

References

External links

Uttar Pradesh Police, Official website

Naini Central Jail Location
{{coord missing, Uttar Pradesh Buildings and structures in Prayagraj Indian independence movement in Uttar Pradesh Prisons in Uttar Pradesh