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India church officials outraged over beatings of inmates

Prison guard allegedly mocked priest on pastoral visit to jail
India church officials outraged over beatings of inmates
Published: October 15, 2015 08:43 AM GMT
Updated: October 15, 2015 05:12 PM GMT

Indian church leaders expressed outrage over the beatings by prison personnel of some 50 inmates of a Goa jail.

At least 50 people were injured in the Oct. 10 attack, with an Italian inmate suffering a fractured leg and a Nigerian a fractured hand. The prisoners are awaiting trial for a variety of offenses, including murder, robbery, drug dealing and kidnapping.*

According to reports in Indian media, the prisoners were beaten with sticks and stomped upon in the presence of the jail's superintendent Melyyn Vaz.

Father Maverick Fernandes, director of Caritas Goa, condemned the incident as barbaric.

"It fails all sense of decent living. The jailers should learn early that a jail is a correctional home, not an area to harden the offender. Our jails need properly trained staff to make them homes of reformation," the priest said.

Six staff members, including the superintendent, have been suspended.

Pilar Father Eusebio Piedade Gomes, editor of the Catholic Konkani weekly "Worker's Friend," said that for a jailer, a prisoner is always a criminal even if he changes his way of life. "Such jailers are not fit to serve in the correctional home."

He recalled a recent visit to the prison where a corrections officer yelled at him, "Why are you roaming with these criminals? You are coming here to do no good."

The government talks about "prison reforms and making prisons correctional homes, but reforms ought to start with the jailers," he said.

Pastoral care of prisoners is one of the main ministries of the Indian Catholic Church, with the national bishops' conference office having a prison ministry desk.

*This paragraph has been corrected and updated.

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