Larkana central jail: IG prevents search operations

HYDERABAD:

The Sindh High Court restrained the Inspector General of Prisons from holding a search operation in Central Jail, Larkana as DIG Prisons Gulzar Channa feared it was unsafe.

The SHC Hyderabad’s Circuit Bench has been hearing a case sent by the SHC chief justice, based on districts and sessions judge Faheem Ahmed Siddiqi’s report on the condition of Larkana’s central jail and its inmates.

Citing a letter by the superintendent of the Larkana jail which stated that the jail police had no control in the prison, the bench’s Justice Shah had ordered the DIG prisons to “inspect the jail and report to the high court, while the prison’s police will be barred from conducting any operation without the court’s permission,” the court had said.

The bench ordered the secretary of health to appoint a doctor for the jail’s hospital immediately. However, the secretary said that, “it was beyond the reach of a doctor to provide health care to 1,509 prisoners.”

Published in The Express Tribune, April 29^th, 2011.