Prison officials charged with ‘killing’ inmate

Deceased’s father files a complaint accusing police of torturing his son to death

KURIANWALA:

An FIR has been registered against nine personnel, including the deputy superintendent and assistant superintendent of prisons, on the charges of torturing and killing an inmate at the Central Jail.

According to the police, the case was registered at the Saddar Police Station on the complaint of Mushtaq Ahmed, father of 28-year-old prisoner Imran Mushtaq alias Mani, who died in jail.

Meanwhile, the Inspector General of Prisons, Shahid Saleem Baig, while taking notice of the death of the inmate at the Central Jail, has formed a five-man inquiry committee and ordered it to submit a report in the next 24 hours. He asked the committee to cover all aspects of the incident in their inquiry report.

The committee is to be led by the DIG of Prisons, Kamran Anjum.

As per the complainant, his son was kept at the Central Jail in a drug case registered at the Batala Colony Police Station. During his imprisonment at the Central Jail, the Deputy Superintendent, Fazal Elhi Lada, the Assistant Superintendent, Jalal Khan, the Chief Warden, Sarfraz Hussain, Ward In-Charge Naveed Ashraf, the Head Warden Muhammad Hanif and four unidentified prison employees abused their authority and tortured and killed the inmate.

The employees of jail reported that the prisoner had fallen sick and was shifted to the Civil Hospital.

When the complainant reached the health facility, he saw that his son’s body had marks of torture.

The complainant contacted the superintendent of jail and was told that he had ordered an inquiry into alleged torture and that some prison staff had been suspended.

Acting on the complaint, the police administered the postmortem of the inmate and based on the findings, registered a case against nine prison officers and employees under Sections 302, 147 and 149 of the PPC.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 20^th, 2022.