Found in pipes, cisterns & potted plants: 58% phones smuggled into Tihar jail are thumb-sized
RTI records obtained by The Indian Express reveal 350 mobile phones and improvised chargers recovered from unusual hiding spots inside Tihar Jail between 2020 and 2025.
Centre Jail Tihar in New Delhi. (Express Photo by Amit Mehra)
4 min readNew DelhiOct 21, 2026 07:23 AM IST First published on: Oct 21, 2026 at 07:19 AM IST
Hidden beneath potted plants and trees, stuck inside toilet cisterns, shoved into water pipes, inside a RO water purifier and even strapped on an inmate’s back — this is where smuggled mobile phones have been recovered from inside Tihar Jail, Asia’s largest prison complex, RTI records accessed by The Indian Express show.
There are 15 Central Jails in the complex, including six in Mandoli, and together they house over 10,000 inmates. Of these, only Central Jail No.3 responded to RTI queries from this newspaper on recovered communication equipment, including VoIP sets, with details of each device’s recovery.
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