Facing execution: Hyderabad prison housing 191 prisoners on death row

Security heightened at the central jail with additional deployment of troops

HYDERABAD: As many as 191 prisoners are on death row at Hyderabad Central Jail which is home to over 1,800 inmates.

Since a large number of the prisoners belong to various banned outfits and are facing execution, the level of security at the jail premises has been heightened. A large number of troops of the Frontier Constabulary, Rangers and the district police in addition to the jail police have been deployed.

The jail officials told The Express Tribune that military contingents have also arrived at the prison. The roads encircling the jail have been partly closed.



Some of the infamous prisoners in the jail include Ahmed Omar Saeed Shaikh, the convict in the murder case of US journalist Daniel Pearl. His accomplices in the crime, Shaikh Adil, Fahad Naseem and Salman Saqib, are also imprisoned along with him.

However, only three of these condemned convicts are likely to be hanged soon as their mercy petitions at the presidency have been dismissed. Two of these convicts, Sabir Baloch and Shahsawar Baloch, were involved in the May 1998 hijacking of the PIA plane from Balochistan.

The third convict, Saleem Francis Maseeh, was sentenced by a military court for a murder crime in Hyderabad Cantt in June 2011. According to the documents available with The Express Tribune, Maseeh's plea at the presidency was submitted on July 15, this year.

According to the jail sources, there are over 50 convicts on death penalty who belong to banned outfits and were involved in various terrorism incidents. However, the appeals of all the convicts are pending hearing at the superior courts.

Security arrangements

Hyderabad DIG Dr Sanaullah Abbasi has suggested deploying Rangers as a parallel force and shifting high-profile prisoners, such as Omar Saeed Shaikh to other prisons. He also demanded audio and video recordings of the meetings of such prisoners with their relatives. He also proposed screening the jail staff through the intelligence agencies and restricting the inmates' access to jihadi literature.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 20^th, 2014.