ONE of India’s most notorious working jails wants you to stay there for the night – and will charge you £20 to do it. Tihar Jail in Delhi could soon become a tourist attraction where you sleep, eat and interact with inmates in the prison. The jail, which is home to 16,000 prisoners, is built […]
ONE of India’s most notorious working jails wants you to stay there for the night – and will charge you £20 to do it.
Tihar Jail in Delhi could soon become a tourist attraction where you sleep, eat and interact with inmates in the prison.
The jail, which is home to 16,000 prisoners, is built over 400 acres.
According to India Today, the ‘jail tourism’ is being proposed to let guests try out the true experience for themselves.
Costing 2,000 rupees (£20) for one day and night, guests won’t be treated to a luxury room.
Instead, you will wear prison clothes, eat the same food as everyone else and sleep on the floor.
You will also be woken up at 5am to work, which can include grinding wheat and cleaning the area.
Mobile phones are not allowed inside the prison.
You will also be interacting with other prisoners during the stay – but only those on ‘good behaviour”.
A source told India Times: “The visitor has to spend a typical day as spent by any other prisoner in Tihar.
“It is important for visitors to share the same premises with these inmates, so that they can interact with them, listen to their stories.”
Sandeep Goel, DG (Prisons) added they often received requests to stay in the jail: “Even foreigners want to stay in Tihar for a live experience of Indian jails.”
A similar scheme launched in 2016 at Telangana jail in India, costing £5 to spend the day in prison – although did not allow interactions with other prisoners.
It isn’t the only jail to be open to tourists in the world.
Famous prisons you can visit include Alcatraz, which opened to tourists in 1973, and Kilmainham Gaol in Dublin which reopened to the public in 1971.
The most haunted prison in the UK lets you stay overnight as well as go on a night-time ghost tour.
A prison-themed hotel in Margate also lets you become a convict for the night.
Even Disneyland has a ‘Disney jail’ for misbehaving guests.
