What happens when a law-keeper turns lawbreaker? Lawbreakers lick their chops and law-keepers are on tenterhooks.

That is the situation unfolding at Ghaghidih Central Jail, where suspended sub-inspector Manoj Gupta, who shot dead his wife’s friend’s mother and grievously injured his wife and her friend in a fit of rage at his home in Sonari on Friday morning, is lodged.

Gupta was posted as officer-in-charge (OC) of Dumaria police station in Ghatshila sub-division between April 2006 and May 2008 when the Naxalite movement was at its peak. He had led a team of police officers and local villagers to kill 10 CPI(Maoist) rebels on the night of February 14, 2008.

And in Ghaghidih jail 22 Naxalites, several of them hardened ones, are also lodged. The cops fear some of them may seek revenge on Gupta.

“We have enhanced the jail security after sub-inspector Manoj Gupta was lodged in the prison on Monday evening,” jail superintendent Satyendra Prasad Chaudhury said on Tuesday. “We are trying to ensure that Gupta is kept in a protected environment.”

Chaudhury said they had adopted a system of ward-locking after a murder in the prison last month.

“We have beefed up security by increasing the monitoring of CCTV images, continuing the ward-locking system until Gupta is in the prison, besides taking other steps,” said the superintendent.

Another prison official, who spoke under cover of anonymity, said they were made aware about Gupta’s history vis-à-vis the Naxalites.

“As there are a sizeable number of Naxalites lodged in the jail we do not want to take any risk. We have, therefore, taken necessary steps for Gupta’s security inside the jail,” the official said.

Located in the south-eastern part of steel city, Ghaghidih Central Jail has more than 1,900 prisoners. It is equipped with 150 CCTV cameras with round-the-clock monitoring system, three jammers for blocking telecommunication signals, and around 140 security guards. The jammers, however, can block only signals of 2G phones.