No more late night chats for Sindh jail inmates, terrorists

Step taken after it was revealed that many inmates were in contact with terrorists through mobile phones.

KARACHI: The authorities in Sindh have decided to immediately install cellular service jammers in seven provincial jails after it was revealed that many inmates were in contact with terrorists, Express News reported on Wednesday.

The jammers will be installed in prisons located in Karachi, Larkana, Sukkur and Khairpur.

The use of mobile phones by inmates has been a serious security issue for the jail authorities.

Earlier in June, police and Rangers had raided the Karachi Central Jail and found a mobile phone that was allegedly used to plan an attack targeting a senior judge in the city.

Mobiles in jails

Even though many high-profile criminals and terrorists languish in jails across Sindh, the management of facilities is not up to the mark.

The prison and police officials had admitted that smuggling of mobile phones was rampant in jails despite best efforts to curb the practice.

They argued that the best and perhaps the only way to deal with the problem was to have jammers installed, at least in the prisons with high-profile inmates.

Interesting fact

In one instance, India and Pakistan nearly went to war because of a phone call made from a prison in Sindh.

In November 2008, a notorious terrorist, Omar Saeed Shiekh, placed hoax calls to President Asif Ali Zardari and Chief of Army Staff Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, from a jail in Hyderabad.

Shiekh pretended to be the Indian foreign minister and threatened to wage war on Pakistan in retaliation of the Mumbai attacks, using a smuggled British SIM and cell phone.