Former Union minister P Chidambaram is the latest inmate of the Tihar jail.

Former Union minister P Chidambaram is the latest inmate of the Tihar jail here, known to be the largest in Asia with 16 prisons.

Currently, it houses 17,400 inmates, including around 14,000 undertrials, officials said.

Mr. Chidambaram, a former Union home minister who is just 10 days short of his 74th birthday, was on Thursday taken in a blue police bus to the prison from a special CBI court in Rouse Avenue — a distance of 18 km — and was ironically lodged in Jail No.7, where his son Karti was locked up for 12 days in the same INX Media case last year.

Jail No.7 usually houses those facing Enforcement Directorate (ED) cases.

Till December 31, 2018, there were 14,938 male and 530 female inmates lodged in the jail — an increase of 2.02% compared to the numbers as on December 31, 2017.

The hike was due to an increase in the number of undertrials (1.67%).

An increase of 2.23% in the number of convicts has been observed compared to last year.

Tihar has housed a number of high-profile inmates, including late Congress leader Sanjay Gandhi, former JNUSU leader Kanhaiya Kumar, RJD chief Lalu Yadav, industrialist Subrata Roy, gangsters Chhota Rajan and Charles Sobhraj, social activist Anna Hazare and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.

The convicts in the infamous Nirbhaya gangrape case were also lodged in this jail.