Nine prisoners escaped from the Mon district jail in Nagaland on Friday night by scaling its boundary wall.

The prisoners included two convicts and seven undertrials and remained at large till Sunday afternoon.

“They managed to break open the lock of their ward and then scaled the wall, which will be more than 14 metres in height, and escaped around 1am. Nobody has been traced so far. We have registered a case but can share more details in due course,” an official said.

The jail is located on Mon town’s outskirts, around 310km from the state capital Kohima.

District Jail, Mon, established in May 1971, is one of the 11 jails in Nagaland with a capacity to hold 100 inmates.

There are currently 52 inmates after the jailbreak and about 70 jail staff, including security personnel.

“The two convicts who escaped were serving time for theft. We are trying to find out how this could happen. Though no one has been arrested in this connection, questioning of all those on duty last night is going on,” an official said.

He added: “We have alerted the village councils and the village guards. A senior SP (prisons) from Kohima has carried out a preliminary investigation. Action will be taken based on his inquiry report. The police force is on the job to get them back at the earliest,” another official said.

Mon district shares a border with Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Myanmar.

Ganja seized

Two persons were arrested on Sunday after four quintals of ganja was recovered from their possession in Assam’s Karbi Anglong district, chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said.

A joint team of the Karbi Anglong police and the CRPF intercepted a truck and recovered the contraband from a hidden chamber of the vehicle, he said, adds PTI.

“Early in the morning today, @karbianglongpol along with @crpfindia C 20 BN staff intercepted a truck and seized 4 quintal Ganja hidden in a modified secret chamber. Two accused apprehended,” Sarma tweeted.