Interior Ministry turned down NAPA requests for security

Ministry cited lack of funds, recruitment ban, says NAPA director general.

LAHORE:

The National Academy for Prisons Administration (NAPA) made several requests to the Interior Ministry for security equipment and guards prior to yesterday’s attack on a rented hostel, said the   director general of the academy.

Nine trainee warders from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa were killed in a brazen attack on the rented hostel on Tipu Sultan Road, Rasool Park, Ichhra early on Thursday morning, believed to have been carried out by the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan. There was no security at the building.

NAPA DG Muhammad Masood Khan said that various reminders had been sent to the Ministry of Interior for walkthrough gates, metal detectors and CCTV cameras, for an enhanced quota of weapons, and for permission to recruit at least 10 sentries for security duty, but the ministry had turned down the request due to lack of funds and a ban on new recruitments. He said the security equipment had been sought for both the rented hostel and for the NAPA building next to the Camp Jail.

Khan said that four courses at NAPA had been suspended for a week. He said that the two-month course that the trainee warders from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had been on had been devised at the request of the inspector general of prisons of that province and had not been in the original NAPA schedule.

The other courses that were ongoing at the academy included a mandatory course for promotion from the rank of assistant superintendent to deputy superintendent, a mandatory course for junior clerks to be promoted to senior clerks.

He said that 16 officers, 24 clerks, 37 warders and 17 of the 49 trainee warders from the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Prisons Department had been staying in the NAPA building near the Camp Jail, while 32 trainee warders had been staying at the rented hostel.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 13^th, 2012.