KARACHI:
The Ahle Sunnat wal Jamaat (ASWJ) will stage a sit-in outside the Karachi Central Jail on September 7 to protest against the transfer of its activists to other prisons in the province.
“We will continue the sit-in till our activists are brought back to Karachi,” said Aurangzeb Farooqi, a central leader of the party.
The leader claimed that nearly 35 of its activists were transferred to jails in Hyderabad and Sukkur before Eid. “They are being tortured. One of them is a hepatitis C patient, but he is being given the same food as other prisoners.” Farooqi added that families of the prisoners were not being allowed to meet them.
While addressing concerns that the prisoners were transferred because of threats of an attack by militants, Farooqi said that authorities should take action against such elements.
DIG Prisons Nusrat Mangan, however, claimed that he had no knowledge about the transfer of ASWJ prisoners. “The party should tell us the names of its prisoners. We only [classify] prisoners by cases, and not with their political affiliations,” he clarified.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 2nd, 2012.
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The transfer of prisoners is the perogitive of the state. If it is done with consideration of safety and well being of the society at large then the dictates of outside parties should not be taken into consideration. The prisoners in jail are there for a reason. They are not there if they are innocent. Oh! by the way, if they are ill or incapacitated then the state has the responsibilty to look after them. All ill prisoners should be looked after. Let TOLERANCE prevail at all levels.