91 teenagers escape prison using bedsheets

Scores of inmates staged a mass breakout from a youth offenders detention centre in India on Monday.

The prisoners tied bed sheets together and used it to scale down the walls of the three-storey building, police said.

A total of 91 inmates managed to flee the facility in Meerut in the northern Uttar Pradesh state overnight, although 35 have since been recaptured, said the city’s superintendent of police Om Prakash.

"They removed an iron grille from a window at the back of the building while police were guarding the front," Prakash told AFP.

"This was done so professionally that no one got a whiff," he added.

Those still on the run include inmates convicted of crimes such as murder, rape, theft and banditry, Prakash added. All are aged under 18.

Police said the prison break was staged between 1am and 3am and that the alarm was only raised when officers who were patrolling near the centre spotted some of the fugitives trying to flag down public transport.

Inmates from the same centre beat a policeman to death in December after he objected to their lewd behaviour with a woman during a court trial.

Although they are meant to be under lock and key overnight, inmates usually sleep in dormitories rather than individual cells.

https://www.tnp.sg/news/91-teenagers-escape-prison-india-using-beds-sheets
 

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