14 Central Jail officials put behind bars for two years in UTPs escape case

An anti-terrorism court on Saturday sentenced 14 Central Jail officials to two years’ imprisonment after finding them guilty of negligence, which led to the escape of two under-trial prisoners from the jail.

The ATC-19 judge convicted Ghulam Murtaza Shaikh, Salik Ayaz, Rafique Ahmed, Abdul Rehman Shaikh, Fahim Anwar, Naveed Ahmed Khan, Farosh Muhammad, Nadir Hussain, Muhammad Taghyal, Adul Ghafoor, Saeed Ahmed, Ata Muhammad, Muhammad Sajid and Yasir Ali.

Shaikh Mumtaz alias Firoun and Muhammad Ahmed Khan alias Munna, both militants with the banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, had escaped from the Central Jail Karachi in June 2017 in a dramatic fashion, putting in question the security measures at the prison which houses several high-profile prisoners.

The judge observed that during the trial, the evidence against the accused did not suffer any irregularity and it was proved that the jail authorities were negligent due to which the UTPs escaped.

He added, “I have gone through the evidence of the complainant and prosecution witnesses and it appears that [they] have fully supported the version of the FIR without any enmity. [And] accused persons did not examine any witness in their defence to substantiate their defence plea and also they have not examined on oath themselves to disprove of the charge.”

He said that in view of the discussion over evidence during the trial, it was established that the prosecution successfully proved its case against the accused jail officials beyond any reasonable shadow of doubt by brining coherent, trustworthy and circumstantial evidence.

The judge sent all the accused except Muhammad Shafique to jail after handing them down the punishment of two years and a fine of Rs2,000 which in case of default will be turned into one month’s jail.

Shafique was exonerated from the charge as no evidence was brought up against him. The court ordered that his bail be cancelled and the surety he submitted to the court be returned.

Of the accused, five -- Ghulam Murtaza Shaikh, Salik Ayaz, Rafique Ahmed, Abdul Rehman Shaikh and Fahim Anwar -- were on bail and were arrested after the pronouncement of the verdict. The rest were in jail and were remanded back to serve the remaining sentence.

The judge also extended the benefit of Section 382-B of the Code of Criminal Procedure to all the accused which meant that the length of any sentence of imprisonment imposed upon an accused person in respect of an offence shall be treated as reduced by any period during which he was detained in custody for such offence.

The case was registered under sections 223, 234, 225, 225-A, 114, 216 and 34 of the Pakistan Penal Code at the New Town police station on the complaint of then DIG Prisons Ashraf Ali Nizamani