The Sindh Assembly on Tuesday unanimously adopted a resolution calling for the release of prisoners from jails across the province for at least three days on parole in case of deaths of loved ones so that they could attend funerals.
The resolution was passed amid moving scenes in the provincial assembly when MPAs described poor conditions in jails and helplessness of prisoners in case of deaths of parents, children or spouses.
Members from both treasury and opposition benches spoke about poor conditions in jails and suggested the inmates should be allowed to visit their family members who were on their deathbed due to incurable diseases. They called for authorising the jail superintendents to allow the release of prisoners on parole so that they could attend funerals and console their family members in case of a death.
Lawmakers pointed out that at the moment, dead bodies of prisoners’ parents, children and spouses were brought to jails so that prisoners could see their loved ones for the last time. They added that families of prisoners had to wait for hours outside the jails to see them, which was an extremely inhuman attitude.
Muttahida Qaumi Movement MPA Javed Hanif, who is in NAB custody and brought to attend the PA session from jail, became emotional and cried while describing the situation of jails. He said children of incarcerated prisoners were begging on roads and the situation of jails was worse than hell.
Discussing his party’s female minority legislator Mangla Sharma’s private resolution, he said even “small kids are jailed for 25 years”. “Has anyone ever thought how the family members maintain themselves while their men are imprisoned?” he questioned.
He said that “5000 people are in jails while their women sell themselves and their children beg”. Hanif said that instead of correcting the criminals, the system emphasised harsh punishments. He said the denial of bail was against the basic rights of citizens, adding that the system lacked instruments for reforms.
Agriculture Minister Ismail Rahu called the rotten justice system as one of the society’s “critical” problems and said the standards of justice and prosecution had to improve to scale back crimes. He assured the house that the government would step up efforts to correct the colonial-era legal system.
Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah of the PPP said that all the prisoners in the country’s different jails were not criminals. Prisoners implicated in fake cases and handed long-term sentences eventually found themselves at the losing end with no future, as injustice grew a feeling revenge in them against the society.
Opposition leader Firdous Shamim Naqvi of the PTI asked the government to amend the laws and turn the jails into correction centres so that the criminals at the end of their sentence terms could come out as good citizens. He regretted the 1,824 laws were still enforced in the country.
Prisons Minister Syed Nasir Hussain Shah assured the house that the government had approved a bill that was about jail reforms and improvement of living conditions of inmates, which would soon be sent to the assembly’s select committee. Once the committee approves the bill, the government will table it in the house, saying that he will include all the concerns and recommendations of legislators in the proposed draft to make the prisons better. He said that “jails will be now correction centres”.
Earlier, Mangla Sharma spoke on her resolution seeking a two-day parole for prisoners to attend funerals or marriages or to meet patients of blood relations. The assembly also adopted a condemnation resolution against PTI legislators, including Khurrum Sher Zaman Khan and Haleem Adil Shaikh, for inappropriate comments in the house while they along other opposition members were protesting.