PESHAWAR, May 29: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has asked the federal government to make immediate arrangement for shifting Dr Shakil Afridi, who has been sentenced to 33 years for helping the CIA track down Osama bin Laden, from the Central Prison to some other place.

A senior government official said a large number of militants in the Peshawar prison posed a serious threat to the life of Dr Afridi.

“There is a serious threat to his life inside the prison due to the presence of a large number of militants incarcerated in the crowded Peshawar jail,” noted a letter sent by the KP government to the ministry of interior.

It said situation in other prisons in the province is the same and, therefore, transferring him to some other jail in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa would serve no purpose.

“It is imperative that the high-profile prisoner…. may be shifted immediately to some federal facility or to a prison in another province where there is less concentration of militants and terrorists. The matter may be given top priority,” the letter said.

Another official said Mr Afridi had been lodged in the Peshawar jail in a separate cell to ensure his safety and no-one was being allowed to meet him and instructions had been issued for his medical check-up by specialists inside the prison.

Dr Afridi was sentenced last week to 33 years in prison by a tribal court headed by an assistant political agent in Bara in the Khyber tribal region.

The doctor is accused of running a fake vaccination programme in Abbottabad to help CIA obtain DNA samples of the inmates of the compound where Osama bin Laden was killed in a US raid on May 2 last year.