Ahmedabad: Even as Gujarat police officially list 85 absconders as wanted after they allegedly escaped custody or fled following detention under the Prevention of Anti-Social Activities (PASA) Act, only five of them have their photographs available on the National Prison Portal, revealing serious gaps in prison documentation and fugitive tracking systems.Police sources said the lack of photographs and updated inmate records has created significant hurdles in identifying and tracing the fugitives, many of whom have remained untracked for years despite repeated police drives.Data on the National Prison Portal shows photographs have been uploaded for only five absconders from Gujarat prisons — Mukesh Baria (40), Vijay Vadi (20) and Vasim Khan (38), all linked to Lajpore jail; Sarvanan Govindanan (24) from Rajkot Central Jail; and Dashrath Dhandhaliya (30) from Bharuch Central Jail.Officials said that in several other cases, prison authorities either failed to upload photographs or did not update records after prisoners escaped, absconded while on parole or furlough, or fled during police escort.The issue has come under fresh scrutiny following the recent escape of life convict Malde Ramabhai Parmar, 30, from Sabarmati Central Jail in Ahmedabad. Parmar, convicted in a murder and Pocso case, allegedly walked out through the jail’s main gate after breaching multiple security layers and escaped unnoticed.Despite the dramatic jailbreak triggering a statewide alert and search operation, Parmar’s details and photograph are still missing from the National Prison Portal, sources said. Investigators admitted that the lack of a photograph has made it difficult to widely circulate his identity among police units and interstate agencies.Senior police officers said the missing records highlight weak integration between prison administration and police databases. They warned that without proper photographic and biometric data, police are forced to rely largely on manual intelligence gathering and local informers while tracking fugitives.The National Prison Portal was introduced to maintain digital records of inmates and enable coordination among prisons and police departments across the country. However, officials admitted that incomplete uploads and outdated data continue to limit its effectiveness.
