Bangladesh plans ‘feel the jail’ programme in 200-year-old Dhaka prison

Never had any experience in jail? Here the prison authorities have planned a project with the 200-year-old Dhaka jail that will give you a taste of how it feels spending a few days in prison.

The project, known as ‘Feel the Jail’, will let people spend nights inside the ‘famous’ Nazimuddin road ‘building complex’ and have meals used to serve inmates under prison rules. But you have to pay for it!

Syed Iftekhar Uddin, Inspector General of Prisons, revealed the plan to the media at a conference held in the now vacated old jail in Dhaka on Friday.

“The matter is still at the level of an idea. But we hope the project will be launched,” he said.

“Many among the general people are driven by a sense of adventure. They want to know how it feels to spend time in jail. We may give them the opportunity to experience that here,” he said.   

The IG prisons said officials had hit on the idea after visiting some old jails that have been transformed into museums in the Philippines and in India.

“We’ve come to know that a jail in Oxford has been transformed into a hotel without any change in the ambiance,” he said.

Iftekhar said the main project of transforming the jail to a museum would take three years to be completed.

“But we’ll try to get government permission to open it for a day or two every week for visitors,” he said.

The inmates of the jail at Nazimuddin Road in Old Dhaka were transferred to the new Dhaka Central Jail in Keraniganj in July.

The IG prisons spoke about the significance of the old jail in Bangladesh’s history.

“The Father of the Nation, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, spent several years in this jail. On Nov 3, 1975, the brutal killing of four national leaders took place here. This place is historically significant,” he said.

He said the prison authorities were taking various steps to bring the history of the jail into the public domain.

A five-day photo exhibition will begin at the jail on Tuesday.

Altogether 145 photos of Bangabandhu and the four national leaders will be on display.