Wardens on strike

Relationship between Faisalabad Central Jail officials and subordinates grow increasingly hostile.

FAISALABAD: The situation in the Faisalabad Central Jail remains tense following a clash between officials and subordinates on Tuesday. Several wardens also went on strike after accusing the jail superintendent and other officials of torturing them.

Superintendent Tariq Babar suspended a warden Ahmed Hasan for violating discipline and flouting the rules and also issued some of his co-workers show cause notices for departmental inquiry. Punjab Inspector General (IG) prisons Kokab Nadeem deputed deputy inspector general (DIG) Lahore Shahid Salim Baig as the inquiry officer in this regard.

According to jail workers, the superintendent asked Ahmed Hasan to do over 200 push ups for wearing the wrong socks and the warden refused. Warden Ahmed Hasan said that the superintendent had punched him and beat him with his belt. Later his uniform was torn and deputy superintendent Mian Ansar, assistant superintendent Shan and drill instructor Umer Hayat also beat him.

On the other hand, the jail superintendent and other officials said that ‘a mafia of a group of wardens was destroying the system of the jail’. According to jail officials the jail staff was coerced into going on strike. Constable Ahmed Hassan has accused assistant guard inspector Roy Umar Hayat and assistant superintendent Shan Muhammad along with jail superintendent Tariq Babar. He also said that Babar forced him to remove his clothes and drove him outside the jail premise and beat him in public while he was naked.

Superintendent Babar has denied all allegations but accused constable Umar Hayat and eight of his accomplices of torturing the assistant guard inspector. The inquiry official will record his statements regarding the incident on Wednesday.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 21^st, 2010.