5 convicts, including 4 serving life imprisonments, escaped from the Buxar Central Jail late Friday night, raising questions over security of jails in the country.

All the inmates who escaped were hardened criminals and one of them was facing death sentence while four others were serving life imprisonment.

District magistrate Raman Kumar said today that the jailbreak took place between 12 midnight and 3 am.

The jailbreak reportedly came to light as prison officials found them missing while counting all inmates present. An alert has been issued and the area has been cordoned off.

Bihar: 5 prisoners escaped from Central Jail in Buxar late last night pic.twitter.com/BhAZ6he9Pt

— ANI (@ANI_news) December 31, 2016

Principal Home Secretary Aamir Subhani said, “I have given instructions to Deputy Inspector General (DIG) jail to look into the matter and report to me on the same.”

The inmates were undergoing treatment in the jail’s hospital ward, where they broke the window of the bathroom scaled the wall of the jail and escaped. They are believed to have feigned illness.

Iron road, pipe and ‘dhoti’ have been found at the spot from where the prisoners scaled the wall.

According to police source, these prisoners had used a bed sheet, a towel and an iron rod to escape. According to information, these 5 jail inmates had plotted there  escape few days back and with the help of the iron rod they manage to break the window of the toilet and later used the bed sheet to scale the high-rise walls of the jail and flee.

Superintendent of police Upendra Sharma said those who escaped included Prajit Singh hailing from Motihari, Girdhari Rai of Chapra, Sonu Pandey and Upendra Sah of Ara, all four serving life imprisonment and Sonu Singh of Brahampur, Buxar, convicted for 10 years.

The police and district administration have now begun investigation into the entire matter and have launched a massive search in the area to apprehend these 5 prisoners. The police is also investigating the role of any insider who could have helped the prisoners escape. Three wardens of the prison have been suspended.

#UPDATE Buxar (Bihar) jail break: Three wardens have been suspended

— ANI (@ANI_news) December 31, 2016

The District Magistrate said that after probing the incident, responsibility would be fixed on the erring jail officials for the jailbreak. The SP admitted that security has been breached and said that thick fog must have helped them in escaping.