News
Five prisoner deaths since transfer to Pallekele
Less than five months after all inmates of Bogambara Prison were transferred to Pallekele, five have reportedly died so far due to various ailments.
Not having a resident doctor in the prison, travelling difficulties and the time taken for a doctor to reach Pallekele prison from Kandy in an emergency are identified as the main reasons.
The most recent incident of a prisoner’s death at Pallekele was reported on Thursday. The prisoner was admitted to the prison hospital around 11 a.m. after suffering a heart attack, but no doctor had arrived even by 3 p.m. The man had died while being transferred to the Kandy Hospital.
A prison source added that another prisoner suffering from cancer had died on the same day while being transferred from Pallekele to Welikada Prison.
“Since Pallekele Prison is located in the dry zone, the temperatures there is very high. We have several issues even regarding the facilities for the officers on duty under such conditions. Measures are being taken to resolve those problems gradually,” said a senior official of the prison.
“We can accommodate 1,100 prisoners and there are nearly 1,040 in-house by now” he added.
According to relatives of the prisoners, an excessive number of prisoners are detained in a single cell and are undergoing immense hardships due to the high temperature.
This is a concrete building with no proper ventilation system. Therefore the prisoners suffer a lot, they claimed.