Minister orders facilitating inmates as per jail manual

Sindh Minister for Minorities Affairs, Social Welfare and Prisons Hari Ram Kishori Lal has directed the jail authorities to beef up the security of prisons and ensure the provision of facilities to inmates as per the jail manual.

He issued these directives while presiding over an introductory briefing on jails at his office on Monday. Inspector General Prisons Imran Yagoob Minhas gave the briefing on jail manuals, budgets, development schemes and related issues.

The minister ordered evolving the system to facilitate visitors who came to meet inmates in jails. He maintained that overcrowding was the biggest problems of prisons and, to overcome it, under construction jails should be completed in the stipulated time.

He said that he himself would pay surprise visits to prisons in different cities to see improvements and vowed to resolve all issues of jails at the earliest. On the occasion, IG Prisons Imran Minhas Yaqoob informed the minister that 27 prisons in the province had an authorised capacity of 13,038 inmates, whereas at present 17,991 inmates were residing in jails.

He said that jails authorities were facing the biggest problem of overcrowding and, to resolve this issue, three new prisons, one each at Shaheed Benazirabad, Thatta and Malir, were under construction and 70 per cent of work had been completed. He added that four new prisons, one each in Karachi’s District West, Tharparkar and Qambar ShahdadKot, had been proposed in the PSPD 2018-19.

The IG prisons further stated that besides police, personnel of the Pakistan Rangers and the Frontier Constabulary had also been deputed for the security of prisons. He said that the Sindh Prisons were facing a shortage of staff, and the problem needed attention.