Mymensingh Central Jail

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Mymensingh Central Jail is a medium-security prison in Mymensingh, Bangladesh. It began as a district jail in 1792 and was upgraded to a Central Jail in 1997. The jail sits on about 68 acres of land, with roughly 59.6 acres inside the fence and 8.4 acres outside. It was designed to hold up to 996 inmates, but today it houses many more than that.

The jail is the main facility for several districts, with sub-jails in Sherpur, Jamalpur, Kishoreganj, Netrokona, and Tangail. In the early 1800s, it also housed female prisoners. A cyclone in Bengali year 1339 damaged the tin shed of the inmate ward and about 200 prisoners died.

WA Chowdhury served as the first Jail Superintendent of Bangladesh at Mymensingh Central Jail.

Because the buildings are old and dilapidated, the government started an expansion and modernization project in 2016, with an initial allocation of Tk 117 crore. Delays, including the COVID-19 pandemic, led to a plan to increase the project cost to more than Tk 200 crore, and the completion date was extended to June 2022. The project plans to build two six-storey prison buildings, a 100-bed hospital for male prisoners, separate buildings for female and juvenile prisoners, a multi-storey building for prison guards, and a boundary wall.

The prison is managed by the Bangladesh Jail service.