Daily Times

High-profile inmates of Karachi jail have been shifted to prisons in other districts across the country after the authorities concerned came to learn about their illegal activities through a report prepared by intelligence agencies. The move has been explained as part of an attempt to ‘break an organised network’ of prisoners involved in illegal activities.

We hope that the irony in the discovery of illegal activities at a place meant to enable its residents to learn to live lawfully is not entirely lost on the authorities concerned. While shifting inmates from prisons where they maybe a security risk is understandable, it cannot be considered a permanent solution to the loopholes existing in our prisons, including lack of adequate security arrangements.

Militant outfits have carried out at least two massive jailbreaks across the country over the last few years. Bannu jailbreak in 2012 was the largest so far in which 400 inmates escaped. The most recent one took place in Karachi this June when two Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) men, under trial for 64 murders, escaped.

To say that security measures at our major prisons are disappointing will be to say the least. Over the years, we have been facing multiple law and order challenges — ranging from Karachi’s gang wars to religious terrorism spanning the entire country. These challenges have only recently seen us invest in capacity building of our law enforcement agencies. Our prisons still remain neglected. We have yet to come across any serious effort at devising a plan for the institution without which efforts at maintaining law and order and countering extremism cannot go too far.

To begin with, there is a dire need to have separate facilities for hardcore criminals and religious militants. There is justification for keeping them and ordinary criminals side by side.

Shifting inmates from one jail to another is not and should not be a permanent solution. It is about time officials we chalk out an actual plan to ensure that we are vigilant enough against any illegal activity taking place from inside our jails.

Moreover, security for prisons is not just a Sindh problem, but it is an issue across the country. Without fixing prisons, we cannot expect the facility to serve the purpose it has been established for in the first place: to enable inmates to re-integrate in the society as lawful citizens who contribute to our collective well-being, both in material and intellectual terms.  *

Published in Daily Times, September 21^st 2017.