THE JAIL AT DAGSHAI..............

Seeing is believing!!!

A friend from Kasauli had told me that the Jail at Dagshai has been recently restored and turned into  a meuseum, preserving the 160 year old history of the jail and is a must see for anyone visiting the Simla Hills. I soon got a chance to visit the Jail on a class excursion with the students of my class 10.

The jail was built in 1849 at a cost of Rs 72,873 by the British. Of the 54 cells, 16 were for solitary confinement.

The cells has two doors which are barely three feet apart. The prisoner was made to stand against one door and the front door was closed. The prisoner could only stand and being sandwiched between steel grills left practically no scope for movement. This jail came into limelight when a number of Irish freedom fighters were executed here. Four revolutionaries of Kamagata Maru were also executed at Dagshai

As we entered the jail museum, the silence was unnerving and creepy. My usually loud and boisterous students were seemed suddenly quiet. The girls soon ran out of there saying it seemed haunted to them, their footsteps making thudding sound on the hollow wooden floor boards.

The inside of the jail was another world. The cells for Solitary Confinement of the so called hard core criminals were the most heart wrenching. These cells had no ventilation  not even a tiny hole for a spec of light to come in. The inmates of these cells would have had no concept of day or night. It must have been a permanent night for these prisoners. A small shutter in the door must have been used to give food to the prisoners, or maybe throw the food at them? So many questions cross my mind.

Did these prisoners ever leave the cells to see the light of the day or meet another person?

How could a person remain sane in these conditions?

Were the crimes committed by these people in proportion to the punishment? I know that many of them were soldiers and freedom fighters.

As we headed back to school, our bus crossed the Model Burail Jail at Chandigarh, a child exclaimed, "Ma'am look, this jail has got swings!!!"

"Thank God" I said, "We live in today's world!"