"The officer would throw down a cellphone to an inmate, who would fling it back once he was done talking," Karachi Central Jail superintendent Kazi Nazeer Ahmed. PHOTO: MUHAMMAD SAQIB/EXPRESS
KARACHI:
A jail officer caught a Frontier Constabulary (FC) personnel tossing a cellphone to one of the inmates at Karachi Central Jail on Friday evening.
Posted at the sixth watchtower of the prison - which at one end overlooks the Ghousia Colony - the FC personnel, Ameer Nawaz, was caught red-handed after he had dropped a mobile to an inmate.
The breach of security prompted the jail authorities to write letters to the FC officials and also to the home department. Meanwhile, Nawaz, who was deployed at the jail only a week ago, has been removed from duty. He has also been handed over to the paramilitary force for investigations.
Karachi Central Jail superintendent Kazi Nazeer Ahmed told The Express Tribune that the jail authorities have yet to receive replies by FC officials on the issue.
According to Ahmed, the FC personnel had carried out the same activity only two days ago in the prison, which is home to more than 100 high-profile prisoners, including militants and terrorists.
Explaining the routine of the FC officer, the superintendent said, “From the watchtower, the officer would throw down a cellphone to an inmate. After the prisoner was done talking on the phone, he would fling the mobile back to the FC personnel.”
Ahmed did not name the prisoner to whom the cellphone was being given. He denied, however, that the inmate was a political activist or a militant, and said that he was a general inmate.
Currently, there are three platoons of the federal paramilitary force currently deployed at the Karachi prison but the superintendent suspects that no other officer of the FC might be involved in such activities.
Despite increase in officers of the law enforcement agencies at the jail which remain on high alert, jail officials often recover cellphones from inmates. In the last three years, around 500 cellphones have been confiscated from the inmates at the Karachi Central Jail.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 21st, 2013.
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