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Updated: Jan 21, 2019 15:23 IST

The Jammu and Kashmir Police today started analyzing two cell phones and five pen drives seized among other things during a massive search operation at the high-security Kot Bhalwal prison on the outskirts of Jammu on Sunday, a top police officer said. .

“SIM cards might have been there but we could not find them during the searches. They might have been, hidden, destroyed or disposed off secretly as soon as the searches started,” he said.

The search operation was launched after three months of planning,

“The day-long searches were carried out by 300 men from 15 teams of Special Operations Group, Jammu rural police, prison staff and some NGOs. The searches were conducted peacefully. No violence or physical force was applied on the inmates,” said a top home department official who did not wish to be named.

“We were working on it for the past three months. We have seized two cell phones, five pen drives (one of them damaged), scissors, nail cutter, deep freezers, LPG cylinders and some incriminating items,” he added.

The high security prison currently has 510 prisoners including 200 hardened Pakistani and local terrorists, habitual stone-throwers and detainees under the Public Safety Act (PSA).

The prison has 15 blocks where terrorists, stone-throwers and PSA detainees have been segregated.

In December 2006 police quelled a revolt by about 300 terrorists including some Pakistanis after a move to shift some them outside the state sparked a stand-off.

In May 2013, Pakistani prisoner Sanaullah Ranjay, who was attacked inside the prison by a fellow prisoner died later that month in a Chandigarh hospital.