KARACHI: The Sindh Assembly was on Friday told that the two jails in Karachi were the most overcrowded among the 25 prisons in the province.

“Yes, it is [a] fact that the two jails in Karachi are overcrowded,” Nasir Shah, Minister for Prisons, said in reply to a question of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf lawmaker Khurram Sher Zaman during the Sindh Assembly’s Question Hour.

He said the existing capacity of the Karachi central prison was 2,400 while its total population was 4,846 — more than double the existing capacity. “Thus, [this] prison is overpopulated by 2,446 inmates.”

Similarly, the minister said in his written reply that the capacity of the Malir district prison was 1,800, but its present population was 5,249 — almost triple to its designated capacity.

“This prison is overpopulated by 3,449 inmates,” he added.

Rising crime rate cited as reason for overcrowding

He said that the main reason behind the overcrowding was an increase in the crime rate in society.

“Another more important reason is non-availability or construction of district-wise prisons,” he said, adding that there was a need to have a prison in each of Karachi’s six districts.

Against the collective capacity of 4,200, two prisons in the metropolis house 10,095 inmates

Mr Shah informed the house that it was imperative to construct at least one prison in every district on a priority basis to reduce the overcrowding of inmates and ensure that they could live in a better manner behind bars.

Minister Shah disagreed with another question by the same lawmaker that whether the Sindh government’s Rs1.5 billion high-security prison project had not gone beyond paperwork in two years as the land acquired for it had not been transferred to the prisons department.

He said it was not a fact that the project had not gone beyond paperwork in two years because of the issues pertaining to the transfer of the land.

He added that the schemes for construction of the high-security prison in Sindh for 1,000 inmates had been approved at the cost of Rs4.8bn in a meeting of the departmental development working party (DDWP) held on March 14 this year.

He added a 300-acre piece of government land for the project had been identified, or selected, in Deh Kohistan 7/2 Tapo, Jhimpir taluka of Thatta district and the provincial home department had requested the member (land utilisation) of the Board of Revenue for transfer of the said land to the prisons department.

Nine male underage prisoners in Sindh

To a question asked by Grand Democratic Alliance’s Arif Jatoi, the minister said a total of nine male prisoners aged less than 16 years were incarcerated in the province.

He said six of those boys were imprisoned in the Youthful Offenders Industrial School (YOIS) Hyderabad, another two in YOIS Sukkur and one boy is in YOIS Larkana as of Sept 30.

Mr Shah said those children were getting legal aid provided by the government and other channels. He added they were jailed for various offences.

Mr Shah confronted GDA’s Hasnain Mirza’s claim that there was no school there to develop skills of those boys in different trades.

He said various skills were being offered to the young inmates so that they could become useful individuals when they returned to society.

He told the house that there were some babies as well in jails along with their inmate mothers who were duly being taken care of.

Special prison force on the cards

He said the PPP government had brought about a number of reforms and formulated laws to improve the culture in prisons.

The minister was also asked to confirm whether the prisons department had demanded for at least 2,900 guarding staff and formation of a separate special prison security force to effectively safeguard the 25 detention facilities across the province.

Mr Shah said worldwide the staff managing inmates inside prisons was separate from the security staff performing duties outside.

“It is felt that while the managing staff of the Sindh prisons department is quite short as compared to the existing prisons population, therefore 3,289 posts of guarding staff including 1,000 posts for the formation of a separate Special Prison Security Force (SPSF) were demanded through SNE 2017-18 out of which 921 posts of the guarding staff including 624 posts of SPSF have been sanctioned,” he stated.

He gave details of the sanctioned posts of SPSF which included 13 sub-inspectors, 26 assistant sub-inspectors, 70 prison head constables and 515 constables.

Other posts sanctioned include 31 SIs, seven ASIs, 21 HCs, one lady HC, 227 prison constables and 10 lady prison constables.

To another question, the prisons minister said a total of 18,325 prisoners were in the jails of Sindh out of which 87 were foreign nationals, predominantly Africans.

Sharjeel shares personal experience

PPP’s Sharjeel Memon — who is at present in prison along with Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan’s MPA Jawed Hanif — said the overall conditions in jails were better, yet, much still remained to be done.

He said earlier a meagre amount of Rs30 daily was allocated for a single prisoner for food, but now it had increased to Rs155 per day per prisoner.

The former minister, who is facing references filed by the National Accountability Bureau, said perks for the jail staff should increase.

So far, he said, 50 of the prisoners in the Karachi central prison were found positive for HIV/AIDS, but a wider screening of all inmates could identify many more across the province.

Sharing his personal interactions with prisoners, he said: “There is an artist who is a good painter and sculptor. He is languishing in prison for around 16 years as he was sentenced to 211-years imprisonment. His appeal is pending with the Sindh High Court for the last 12 years.”

Similarly, he said, there were individuals who passed their prime years in cages and eventually got freed after being found innocent.

He said he would be writing a letter to the SHC chief justice, the Sindh chief minister and other authorities to spend at least a single day in a month and witness the state of affairs in the jails of Sindh.

Published in Dawn, November 10th, 2018