Four employees of the Beur Central Jail in Patna were suspended on Wednesday as Bihar's prison administration cracked down on criminals running kidnapping and extortion activities from jails.

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"Four Beur jail staff have been placed under suspension after four mobile phones, including that of Pappu Yadav, and 10 VCDs were seized during a raid on the jail," Inspector General (prisons) Deepak Kumar Singh said.

The raid was ordered by the Patna high court, which is hearing a petition filed by the Indian Medical Association seeking action against extortion gangs.

In a damning indictment of the Bihar government, the high court had on Tuesday described the crime situation in Bihar as "beyond control."

This morning, the court ordered the Bihar Military Police to raid all central jails in the state and confiscate prohibited articles, including cell phones, from the inmates.

A cell phone in possession of Pappu Yadav was seized in the raid on Beur jail.

Yadav, a Rashtriya Janata Dal MLA, is lodged in the jail in connection with the murder of Communist Party of India-Marxist MLA Ajit Sarkar in 1998.
 
Recently, a large number of his supporters, who had gone to meet him in the jail, had clashed with the prison staff.