Modern jammers to be installed in Punjab jails

LAHORE: The government has decided to install modern jammers for jamming satellite phone frequencies in 43 jails of Punjab. More than 500 already installed in the prisons of the province are capable of jamming only mobile signals.

Reliable sources told ‘Jang’ that several jammers in Punjab jails are either damaged or outdated. Sources said that the National Radio and Telecommunication Company (NRTC), an organization of the Ministry of Defence, installed cameras in half of Punjab’s prisons in 2015 and in the remaining prisons in 2017. The jammers had a warranty of three years followed by a service level agreement with NRTC that expired in 2021. This agreement has now been reinstated after all payments have been made.

Sources said that the Punjab government has recently paid NRTC arrears of Rs530 million and some of which had been due since 2015. NRTC provided a complete security solution for the jails which included jammers, metal detectors, walk-through gates, wireless sets and scanning machines among other security devices.

Sources said that the old jammers will be replaced with jammers with advanced security features that can jam satellite signals and frequencies. This system will also be operated by the engineers posted by NRTC in the jails as before, as no private organization or company can be allowed to do this work in a sensitive installation like a jail.

When contacted by “Jang” in this regard, Provincial Interior Secretary Noorul Amin Mengal said that NRTC has been asked to include the features of jamming satellite phone signals in the new jammers. He said that the manufacturer of jammers is NRTC itself, so it will be easy to add new features to them.

Mr Mengal said if these jammers had been imported from abroad, many problems could have been faced in their upgradation today. He said that during the riots in the Gujrat jail, the prisoners had broken the security devices, for which Rs5.70 million have been sanctioned for repurchasing.

The Provincial Home Secretary said that a committee consisting of DIG Headquarters (Prisons) and Deputy Secretary (Prisons) has been formed to determine the responsibility for the damage caused during the riots in the Gujrat jail and will recommend actions.

In this regard, IG Prisons Mian Farooq Nazir told “Jang” that approval has been given to install 5 thousand more modern CCTV cameras worth more than Rs50 million in the prisons of Punjab.

He said that at present 4 thousand CCTV cameras are monitoring the prisons of the province but they are being used only for outdoor monitoring of the prisons. IG Prisons said that new modern CCTV cameras will also be installed by NRTC which will monitor every inch of the interior of barracks and jails. The CCTV cameras will be equipped with advanced features like night vision, zooming and face recognition.

Mian Farooq Nazir said that earlier the monitoring of prisons was done only in the Inspectorate of Prisons, while now three control rooms are being set up, one of which will also be set up in the Punjab Interior Department.