12/08/2026
A life-term convict. A maximum-security prison. A working mobile phone.
NDTV, 12 August 2026: former MP Prajwal Revanna, serving a life sentence, was allegedly found using a mobile phone inside Bengaluru prison during a surprise Crime Branch raid. A case has been registered. Officials are still trying to establish how the handset got in.
That last line is the whole problem.
Every prison in the country already has rules against mobile phones. Most have search protocols. Many have some form of signal denial installed. And handsets keep turning up - in cells, in raids, in viral videos.
Because partial coverage is not enforcement.
A system that blankets one block and leaves the next uncovered. A deployment tuned for 2G-era bands while inmates run 4G and 5G. Signal denial that fails at the cell wall, the barrack corner, the high-value ward where it matters most. Contraband doesn't need a gap in the policy. It only needs a gap in the coverage.
Prison signal-denial capability in India needs to move from installed to enforced - full-band, verified block-by-block, measured against real handsets in real cells, and audited after commissioning rather than at it.
Until then, every raid will end the same way: a phone on the table, and a question nobody can answer.
Read: https://lnkd.in/gZrGr_q2