Superintendent pledges to check phone use

LAHORE:

District and Sessions Judge Mujahid Mustaqeem Ahmed on Saturday disposed of two petitions after the jail superintendent pledged to keep a check on under-trial prisoners accused of using mobile phones to extort members of the public through threats of violence.

Hafiz Muhammad Ishaq and Malik Muhammad Arif filed the petitions seeking action against Waheed Butt, who allegedly called them from Kot Lakhpat jail and demanded they pay him Rs300,000 and Rs50,000, respectively.

They said that Butt had told them he had criminal associates outside jail who would kill them if they did not pay.

The court had directed the jail superintendent to investigate the complaint. The superintendent submitted a detailed reply in which he said that the accused prisoner had denied the charges.

He pledged to keep a check on him.

The district and sessions judge also recently wrote a letter to the Punjab inspector general of prisons asking him to look into complaints that prisoners were running gangs from jail using mobile phones and asking the IG to make sure the ban on phones in prison is enforced.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 8^th, 2012.