Islamabad - In a recent session of Senate standing committee for interior was convened, chaired by Senator Rehman Malik, where it was suggested that there should be separate jails for female prisoners and apart from the female police personnel, female jail superintendents should also be appointed.
Rehman Malik also stated that the female prisoners in the jails in Pakistan were being harassed at night. They were subjected to maltreatment and are exploited for illicit purposes.
According to the 2013 annual report of HRCP, “There are no separate juvenile cells for female prisoners. There are no separate washrooms in females’ cells and the walls of the existing washrooms are hardly 4-5 feet high.”
Jails in Pakistan are rife with several other vices and administrative issues that need to be taken care of. There have been persistent reposts of some privileged and influential prisoners having access to mobile phones and even internet inside the prison. Prisoners are now known to have uploaded selfies and photos from inside the jails and are online on their social networking accounts, chatting like a normal citizen living outside, according to reports in local news media. They pay big amounts of bribe to jail management, who then allow the inmates to keep cellular phones.
In a recent writ in the Lahore High court Rawalpindi Bench, Mr. Justice Ibad ur Rehman Lodhi has remarked that, “The purpose of Jammers is to control communication from jail to the outer world, whereas there is a clear security breach and lapse on the part of the jail management. Whereby the jammers have failed to control the communication, then why should the surrounding areas remain jammed in consequence.”
The same view was taken both by the apex court as well as honourable Sindh High court in the matter of jammers. The concept of registering a complaint against the police personnel specially from the women prisoners section is almost impossible, says the HRCP. “We receive complains from the male prisoners from time to time but those too are not very regular and fruit-bearing. They get through to us hardly but in case of women prisoners the record of complaints reflects a zero graph so far,” stated a recent HRCP statement.
However, some other rights activists say that women prisoners are suppressed even more when they dare to speak against any maltreatment with the prison. If a female prisoner dare speak, the personnel makes her life hell, they use “URTI” —a concept of changing the barracks throughout the night without allowing the prisoner to sleep which is a grave violation of human rights. Another problem pervasive within the jails is the easy accessibility of drugs.The menace of drugs outside of the jail premises in Pakistan is not very hidden but despite the so called security and preventive measures, drugs are openly supplied inside the jails. According to the statements by Superintendent Adiala central jail and the DIG (Prisons Punjab) both said, “These accusations are baseless and Mr. Rahman Malik himself has been our guests in the prisons for a long time. How could he claim such things when he knows there’s not been any such incident ever.”
The Central jail deputy Superintendent also claimed that “I can assure you that not only in Central jail Adiyala but all over the country, there has never been a single issue of drug trafficking, sneaking mobiles or harassment of women in the jails in Pakistan.”
An advocate Supreme Court, Raja Muhammad Farooq, while giving a reference of a case, said, “In the year 2014, one convict/under-trial prisoner of a murder and blasphemy case Adiala central jail, namely Asghar had been hit by a fire of 30 bore pistol, by accused namely Yousaf, who also had done Elite Force course and was on security duty in the jail. Yousaf was recovered with a dagger and 17 bullets. The question arises as how even after the rhetoric of fool proof security, the crime weapons could reach in the premises of the jail and in the hands of a person who’s the was supposed to be the guardian and protector.”
In the aftermath of probe inquiry and registration of a case FIR against the jail staff at the lowest ebb, excluding all senior personnel/management responsible for ensuring fool proof arrangements. The source of this infiltration has remained unearthed till date.
Certain jails including the most modern jail in Pakistan known as Adiala central Jail Rawalpindi have been exposed to such types of deliberate misadministration for reasons to believe.
In cases where there had been element of corruption and corrupt practices, there’s a strong perception in the minds of the people about the jails being an industry of income generating projects for the corrupt. The government needs to take stern measures to fix the broken jail system in the country.
–The writer is a freelance contributor.
zubaria jan