Tihar Jail mobile phone smuggling has involved hundreds of devices hidden in toilet cisterns, water pipes, potted plants, walls and other concealed spaces, according to RTI records obtained by The Indian Express. The records show that Central Jail No. 3 reported 285 recoveries involving 350 mobile phones between 2020 and 2025, highlighting the operational challenge faced by prison authorities in controlling illegal communication equipment inside Delhi’s largest prison complex.
The recoveries were recorded across a range of locations, including attached toilets, common toilet roofs, barrack walls, plastic boxes, tiffins and areas around trees. In one case, a phone was found strapped to an inmate’s back. Construction workers and masons also recovered devices during digging inside the prison, including phones found near a peepal tree and an MCV box.
The RTI records cover Tihar’s 15 Central Jails, including six facilities at Mandoli, but only Central Jail No. 3 provided detailed information on recovered communication equipment and the locations where devices were found. The wider complex houses more than 10,000 inmates, according to the report.
Small handsets dominated the recoveries. Of the 350 phones, 202, or 58%, were Chinese-made Kechaoda miniature phones. The devices are described in the report as thumb-sized and generally cost a little over Rs 1,000. Samsung Duos phones accounted for another 88 recoveries, or 25% of the total.
Other recovered brands included Oppo, Redmi, Vivo, Melrose and Realme, along with lower-cost Indian brands such as Hero, Ringme, Snexian, Blackzone and Lvix. Only two iPhones and six Nokia smartphones were recovered. Most of the devices were Android models with dual-SIM capability, according to the records.
The inventory also points to the supporting equipment needed to keep these devices operational inside a restricted environment. Seventeen phones had their IMEI serial numbers erased. Authorities recovered earphones, memory cards, data cables and pen drives, generally alongside mobile phones. Nineteen improvised or hand-made chargers were also found.
In one search operation in June 2023, prison staff recovered seven mobile phones and an equal number of improvised chargers. The records indicate that inmates made some chargers inside the prison, allowing devices to be used even when standard charging accessories were not available.
The records also contain information from other facilities in the prison network. Central Jail No. 15 at Mandoli reported the recovery of 27 pen drives between 2020 and 2026, while Central Jail No. 14 reported one. Central Jail No. 12 said prison staff became aware of inmates using voice-over-internet-protocol equipment on January 1, 2019, although no such equipment was seized. It reported that 60 penalties had been imposed on inmates found using mobile phones over five years.
The Mandoli complex, spread across 67 acres in northeast Delhi, was completed about a decade ago to reduce pressure on Tihar. The reported recoveries show that the challenge is not limited to screening people at entry points. Devices are also being concealed and retrieved within toilets, barracks, open areas and locations affected by construction or maintenance work.
Prison authorities have listed mobile jammers, CCTV cameras, surprise searches in barracks and toilets, cross-frisking by Tamil Nadu Special Police and intelligence gathering among the measures being used to prevent illegal communication. The next operational challenge is maintaining control over vulnerable spaces and detecting improvised methods of concealment and charging across a large, densely occupied prison network.
