Maharashtra Prison Official Transferred Following Allegations of Forced Religious Conversion and Inmate Abuse

Petrus Gaikwad, a jail superintendent from Beed district, has been transferred to Nagpur following serious allegations of misconduct.

The Maharashtra prison department has ordered the immediate transfer of Beed district jail superintendent Petrus Gaikwad to Nagpur Central Jail as deputy superintendent amid concerning allegations of forcible religious conversion and mistreatment of inmates.

BJP MLA Gopichand Padalkar recently raised serious accusations against Gaikwad, claiming that he denied inmates food and water while subjecting them to physical abuse in attempts to force religious conversion. According to Padalkar, Gaikwad also removed photographs of national icons from the jail premises and replaced them with Biblical verses on the walls.

On Wednesday, the state home department officially issued a transfer order, citing "administrative grounds" as the reason for Gaikwad's reassignment to the Nagpur Central Jail as deputy superintendent.

This is not Gaikwad's first brush with controversy. He was previously implicated in a case involving the death of a prisoner from the Scheduled Caste community at a jail facility in Jalgaon, located in northern Maharashtra.