Notices sent to home secy, prison police chief to explain security lapses

A civil rights campaigner had filed a petition against lax security around Karachi Central Jail.

KARACHI:

A civil rights campaigner has gone to court against the provincial home department and the prisons police for the lax security around Karachi Central Jail.

Rana Faizul Hasan approached the Sindh High Court, requesting it to order a probe into the militants’ attempt to get a large number of prisoners free from the jail. Moving a miscellaneous application, he said the paramilitary force had unearthed a 135-foot-long tunnel dug into the prison from a house in the surrounding residential locality.

Mobile phones and daggers were also seized during a crackdown inside the jail barracks. Hasan alleged that this is an evidence of lapse in security at the jail, where hundreds of the hardened criminals are serving their sentences or facing trial.

The petitioner said replies may be called from the home secretary as well as the inspector-general and deputy inspector-general of the prison police about the failure of security arrangements put in place in and around the central jail.



After the preliminary hearing, the two-judge bench - headed by Justice Muhammad Ali Mazhar - issued notices to the home secretary, Sindh IG and DIG jails to file their comments. The hearing was adjourned for a date to be notified later by the office.

Jammers in jail

In his main petition, Hasan had sought directives for the relevant authorities to install jammers at prisons across the province.

Karachi Central Jail houses around 4,500 inmates, which include high-profile prisoners, terrorists and target killers associated with some political parties, he had stated in the petition. A large number of inmates are operating their network through cellular phones from inside the prisons, he had claimed, adding that contraband narcotics reach the inmates with the connivance of the jail administration.

The petitioner had submitted that he sent several applications to the authorities to install cellphone jammers but the equipment was installed only in Karachi’s prison. He pleaded the court to direct the respondents to ensure the installation of cellphone jammers in all prisons across the province.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 16^th, 2014.