Skardu jailbreak: ATC sentences five officials to 17 years in prison

Jail authorities convicted of letting prisoner on death-row escape.

GILGIT: An anti-terrorism court (ATC) on Monday sentenced five officials, including a deputy superintendent of police, to 17 years in prison for letting loose Naveed Hussain, a prisoner on death-row, from a jail in Skardu.

Five others accused in the case were acquitted by Justice Raja Shahbaz Khan of ATC-1 during the hearing.

Hussain, a resident of Gilgit, escaped from Skardu jail in January. He was sentenced to death for killing ATC judge Jamshed Khan and two others in Gilgit city in 2005 and 2006, respectively. For better security measures, Hussain was shifted from Gilgit to Skardu jail, but he managed to escape by jumping over the prison wall.

DPO Ghulam Hussain, Head Warden Mohammad Khan, Warden In-charge Bashir Ahmad, Akhun Raza, and Johar Ali were sentenced for abetting the prisoner’s escape under Act 222-223 of the Pakistan Penal Code.

A similar jailbreak incident occurred in December 2012 when Shakirullah Jan and Arifuddin escaped from Gilgit jail after reportedly intoxicating the security official on duty.

Jan, who hails from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P), was undergoing trial in an anti-terrorism court in Gilgit for the murder of cleric Agha Ziauddin Rizvi in January 2005. In the aftermath of Rizvi’s assassination, nearly 20 people were killed.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 30^th, 2013.