Ak­ile Si­mon

?Five po­lice of­fi­cers were up to late yes­ter­day un­der probe af­ter three pris­on­ers es­caped from the hold­ing bay of the Ch­agua­nas Po­lice Sta­tion on Sat­ur­day. Se­nior of­fi­cers said yes­ter­day that the five, who have been served with no­tices, face sus­pen­sion and oth­er dis­ci­pli­nary charges.

One of the sus­pects was re­cap­tured hours af­ter the es­cape but the oth­ers re­mained at large up to late yes­ter­day.

This lat­est es­cape adds to the long list of sus­pects and oth­er ac­cused peo­ple who have es­caped le­gal cus­tody while at the hold­ing bay or cell block ar­eas of po­lice sta­tions and sev­er­al mag­is­trates' court. In­ves­ti­gat­ing of­fi­cers said the es­cape was cap­tured on a sur­veil­lance cam­era at the cell block. The pris­on­ers–ages 23, 21 and 24, of San Fer­nan­do, Cunu­pia and Ch­agua­nas, re­spec­tive­ly–were dis­cov­ered miss­ing from the hold­ing bay around 5.30 pm.

How­ev­er, hours af­ter the break­out, one of the sus­pects was held by of­fi­cers of the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion in Ch­agua­nas. He was iden­ti­fied as the man who broke two locks on a back door, just be­fore the es­cape. That sus­pect is ex­pect­ed to ap­pear be­fore a mag­is­trate in the Ch­agua­nas court to­day, charged with es­cap­ing le­gal cus­tody and ma­li­cious dam­age to po­lice prop­er­ty. The de­tainees were among sev­er­al sus­pects who were brought to the sta­tion for ques­tion­ing in con­nec­tion with armed rob­beries and lar­ce­ny with­in the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion.

Head of the South/Cen­tral Di­vi­sion, ACP Shah Mo­hammed con­firmed yes­ter­day that no­tices were served on the of­fi­cers who had been on du­ty at the time of the es­cape. In a brief tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Mo­hammed said a full-scale in­ves­ti­ga­tion had be­gun to de­ter­mine if crim­i­nal or dis­ci­pli­nary charges should be laid against any of the of­fi­cers in con­nec­tion with the in­ci­dent. "No­tices have been served al­ready on those re­spon­si­ble and fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tions are tak­ing place now to as­cer­tain whether any oth­er sub­se­quent charges would be made against those who worked that day," Mo­hammed said.

He not­ed, how­ev­er, that the peo­ple who were ar­rest­ed in con­nec­tion with out­stand­ing in­quires were sus­pects and had not been charged with any of­fence, hence the rea­son they were placed in the hold­ing bay oth­er than a cell. Mo­hammed said the sus­pect who had been charged, broke off a piece of steel from a bar and used it to break two locks. "We have since tak­en the ap­pro­pri­ate ac­tion to ren­der the area much safer and to en­sure there is no such re­oc­cur­rence," he said. The se­nior cop warned that breach­es of du­ty would not be tol­er­at­ed and would be dealt with in a se­vere man­ner.