The jail, believed to be Asia's largest, houses militants, dreaded gangsters and hardened criminals
Two
prisoners have escaped from India's maximum security Tihar jail by
digging a tunnel under a wall and scaling another, authorities said.
Prison
authorities discovered Faizan and Javed, awaiting trial on burglary
charges, were missing when they failed to show up for roll call on
Sunday.Officials said one of the fugitives had been captured and was being questioned.
The jail, believed to be Asia's largest, houses militants, dreaded gangsters and hardened criminals.
This is the first instance in which Tihar inmates have dug their way out of prison, reports said.
In what appears to be a carefully planned prison break reminiscent of Hollywood film Shawshank Redemption, the two men are believed to have scaled the wall of one jail to reach another where they dug a tunnel under the perimeter wall and crawled out through a drain, the Times of India reported.
Officials say they are still trying to piece together exactly how the escape was executed.
"They escaped sometime on Saturday or Sunday. We will find out how they managed to escape. It is too early to say how and when they staged the jail break," news agency AFP quoted Tihar's deputy inspector general Mukesh Prasad as saying.
The prison, which has a maximum capacity of 6,250 prisoners, is massively overcrowded with more than 13,500 inmates.
Officials said an investigation had been ordered to find out how the prisoners managed to slip past armed guards and electronic surveillance.
