The crime team of India Today has unearthed a prison that has turned into a vicious hub of third-degree torture, abuse and corruption.

Here, an inmate is pinned down on the ground, with his feet up and locked in bamboo sticks by fellow prisoners. Unbearable screams pierce through the large hall as a deputy jailer unleashes a flurry of club blows on his bare soles. This brutal act takes place at no secretive torture cell but inside the fortified walls of a prison 30 km from Delhi - the Kasna jail of Greater Noida in Uttar Pradesh.

India Today's team recorded on camera a vicious cycle of atrocities and corruption in the jailhouse that authorities in UP advertise as a model facility of its kind. The investigation has found the jail to be anything else, but model.

Akram Khan, a deputy jailer, was filmed beating the soles of an inmate with a club, a degrading and oppressive torture technique common in Middle-Eastern countries. Khan was assisted by lifers, who held the feet of the victim in bamboo poles, and chief warden Shoorveer Singh Yadav.

Ajay Bholaram, who is a former inmate of the Kasna jail, told India Today that such brutality was routine in the prison. He also alleged prison staff yanked off his toenail when he was serving his sentence. Inmates, he claimed, were subject to foot whipping if they didn't bribe the jail authorities.

Corruption, he insisted, was rampant in the Kasna prison. India Today's investigation corroborated his claims.

The probe recorded a prisoner slamming another to a pillar. The victim was then stripped to his underpants and beaten with a truncheon, under the orders of a jail guard, who was seen counting his daily bribes.

Footage from inside the jailhouse showed guards were given a free rein to wantonly abuse prisoners with soul beatings. Several senior inmates were seen participating in foot flogging of another prisoner, who sobbed and begged his tormentors to stop.

Senior jail officials were also found to have developed their own mechanisms to dodge external scrutiny. Staff were heard making announcements on the public address system to warn inmates about an impending inspection. They are told to hide cash and contrabands.

India Today's investigation found compelling proof of deep-rooted corruption in the Kasna jail, where outside vendors ran a makeshift market in the compound.

The probe observed commodities, which inmates should be provided free, were sold at premium prices. Prohibited things like cigarettes were available at Rs 30 a piece. Liquor, insiders say, could be bought for anything between Rs 1,000 and Rs 3,500 a bottle.

Vegetables, a basic commodity, was priced at Rs 400 a kg. Vendors were also filmed depositing the share from their daily sales to select inmates, who would then hand over the cash to prison staff.