Nirbhaya filmmaker Leslee Udwin allowed inside Tihar Jail without mandatory background checks

NEW DELHI: The home ministry, in its haste to approve British filmmaker Leslee Udwin's application to shoot interviews of gender crime convicts inside Tihar jail, ignored its own 2012 circular mandating background security checks to be run on foreigners seeking to visit Indian prisons.

According to home ministry sources, a set of guidelines was issued in December 2012 to regulate movement/visits of foreign visitors inside Indian jails. These norms specifically state that background checks should be done on all foreigners applying for prior permission to visit jail premises.

The foreigners visiting Indian jails may not only include mediapersons or filmmakers, but also criminologists, researchers, embassy staff, workers of NGOs engaged in prisoners' welfare, or those seeking to just celebrate festivals like Christmas on jail premises.

"Their applications are received from time to time ... the guidelines were issued to standardize the parameters for their access to Indian prisons, and one of the key conditions laid down was to verify the antecedents of the foreign visitor before giving the permission," said a home ministry official.

The official added that the background check could have been done by the Intelligence Bureau, with the help of R&AW, or even Delhi Police in Udwin's case. "Though the decision on Udwin's application may well have been positive after the background check, the fact that this parameter was not fulfilled by either the home ministry or the Tihar jail authorities, is a lapse," said the official.

Meanwhile, the Union home ministry is also verifying how Nirbhaya rape convict appeared for the interview in normal clothes and not in jail uniform. As per prison rules, a convict must only wear prison uniform on jail premises.