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Reference : NDTV

A jail officer in Punjab has been suspended following claims that he misappropriated monies intended for inmates' food, including making fraudulent records for the purchase of lemons.

Gurnam Lal, the superintendent of Kapurthala Modern Jail, was charged when jail records revealed that roughly 50 kg of lemons had been purchased but that detainees had not received any.

The bogus lemon entries were added after the price of lemons skyrocketed last month, hovering at $200 per kilogramme.

When an inspection team came to the jail, the detainees explicitly said that they did not receive lemons in their allotment.

The Punjab Minister for Jails, Mining, and Tourism, Harjot Singh Bains, then ordered an investigation against the jail superintendent. Officers said Gurnam Lal was suspended after the inquiry found various violations.

On May 1, ADGP (Jail) Virendra Kumar ordered two senior officers to the jail for a surprise inspection after the charges surfaced. The crew discovered that the convicts' food was of poor quality and insufficient.

Every chapati made in the jail weighed less than 50 grammes, implying that flour supplies were also diverted, according to officers.

The investigation team also found inconsistencies in the entries for vegetable purchases in the jail records, according to their findings.

The jail supervisor displayed a vegetable buy to match the 5-day requirement, but the inmates complained that the quantity was insufficient.