Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf MPA Arsalan Taj in an open letter to President Dr Arif Alvi has requested equal treatment for all inmates with severe medical conditions in prisons all over the country.
In the letter, MPA Taj said: “A precedent has been set to allow a convicted person, Nawaz Sharif, to go abroad for his medical treatment; therefore, all those inmates who have been facing similar medical condition shall be given the same facilities and relaxations given to Sharif.”
“Whereas, hundreds of prisoners who have been declared as terminally ill should be allowed to spend the last days of their life with their families,” he wrote in the letter. Citing statistics presented in a Sindh Assembly session, Taj said that 90 prisoners died in jails of Sindh from 2014 to 2016 mainly due to lack of proper medical facilities.
“Many women in jail have given birth to babies, and many inmates are spending their life in jails due to delay in their cases and lack of evidence.” Moreover, the MPA said, more than 10,000 prisoners across the country were suffering from various ailments but they were not being provided proper medical facilities.