Serving life term in open jail, Jaipur ‘Tinder murder’ convict took 5-day Thailand holiday

New Delhi: In a shocking security lapse in Rajasthan’s prison system, a murder convict serving a life sentence at an open jail in Sri Ganganagar district allegedly flew to Thailand for a five-day holiday last year. The trip went undetected after an open prison warder allegedly marked his daily attendance and forwarded fake verification reports to senior officials.

The prisoner, identified as Dikshant Kamra, was convicted in the infamous 2018 Jaipur ‘Tinder murder’ case. Jail authorities launched an inquiry after a woman approached Rajasthan Director General of Prisons Ashok Rathore, accusing Kamra of harassment, deceit, and links to firearms and narcotics. On 3 November, local police intercepted a car registered to Kamra’s brother in Jawahar Nagar, seizing 40 grams of opium alongside Kamra’s passport. He was arrested under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act.

A check of the passport revealed travel stamps showing he was in Thailand between 9 and 13 October 2025. Although the passport was issued in 2016, it was never seized upon his arrest in 2018 or recorded after his conviction in 2023. DIG (Prisons) Rakesh Mohan Sharma confirmed the breach, stating that open prison warder Hapuram marked Kamra present during the trip and even sent an old photograph to the jail superintendent to cover up his absence. Hapuram has since been suspended, and Ghamudwali police registered an FIR against Kamra based on a complaint filed by Jail Superintendent Mahaveer Prasad Meena.

The infamous 2018 Tinder murder

Kamra was serving life for the May 2018 abduction and killing of 28-year-old Dushyant Sharma. Sharma had met Kamra’s partner, Priya Seth, on the dating app Tinder after posing as a wealthy businessman named Vivan Kohli.

Facing heavy personal debts of around Rs 21 lakh, Seth and Kamra plotted to kidnap him for ransom alongside associate Lakshya Walia. When Sharma turned out not to be wealthy, the trio held him captive at a rented flat in Jaipur’s Bajaj Nagar and extorted Rs 3 lakh from his father. Fearing exposure, they stabbed Sharma, smothered him with a pillow, packed his body into a suitcase, and dumped it off the Jaipur-Delhi highway. All three were handed life terms in November 2023.

Open jail rules under fire

Kamra had been moved from Bichhwal Open Farm in Bikaner to the Narsinghpura Birani open facility in Sri Ganganagar in October 2026. Officials are now examining severe violations of the Rajasthan Open Prison Rules, 1972, with the police looking into whether more insiders helped pull off the foreign trip.