RAWALPINDI, Sept 6: Punjab’s prison department has sought modern equipment, and is sending 300 jail wardens for military training, to be better prepared to fight terrorists, Dawn has learnt.

A senior officer of the department said about 200 wardens would go to the army’s Artillery Centre at Attock, and the rest to the Elite Force Centre at Lahore, to learn rapid firing and commando skills.

They will be trained in the use of LMG (light machine gun), which is a military weapon but has been issued to prison guards too in Punjab, along with the regular pistols.

It is for the first time that jail staff is being imparted military training and permitted to carry loaded guns on duty.

Previously the arms used to be blank on their rounds of prison. It is learnt the department has also asked the Punjab government to replace the arms and security equipment provided in 2001. It wants the “obsolete” equipment with the latest walk-though gates, metal detectors, cellphone jammers and modern arms.

On return from the 20-day training programmes, the army-trained wardens would be deployed at the prisons of the province where the threat of terrorist attack is higher.

Since it houses several high-profile convicted or undertrial terrorists, Rawalpindi’s Adiala Jail is one of them, and has selected 10 wardens for the training.

Meanwhile, a second 10-foot high outer-wall is being built around the Adiala Jail with its top ringed by electrified barbed wire two-foot high.

Jail superintendent Malik Mushtaq Awan said that 15 per cent of the work on the Rs30 million project had been completed.

He also revealed that the Special Services Group of the 111 Brigade had already trained 28 guards of his jail and some more would get the training in the near future.

Security officials were alerted by the National Crisis Management Cell that intelligence agencies report say the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has been planning to target government security establishments in the very near future.

Adiala Jail could be one of them.Terrorist and sectarian violence in the country surged after TTP militants attacked Bannu jail last April and freed 383 comrades imprisoned there. Lashkar-i-Jhangvi group that supports TTP is also believed to have become more active.

Adiala Jail Superintendent Malik Mushtaq confirmed that the jail faces serious threat.

However he assured that all possible security measures have been taken to ensure the safety of the prison facility.

“Forty personnel from Pakistan Army’s counter terrorism wing visited our jail last week (to send a message to terrorists) that it would not be an easy target,” he said.

Similarly, the wing commander of Pakistan Rangers also visited the prison facility and reviewed the security.