November 16, 2002	Saturday	Ramazan 10, 1423

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SAHIWAL, Nov 15: Civil Lines police on Friday registered a case against 12 Central Jail prisoners for rioting, setting ablaze gallows, attempting jail break, pelting stones and making hostage five jail employees.

The unrest on Thursday had claimed the life of a condemned prisoner and injuries to 30 other prisoners, including five jail employees as a result of police firing. The trouble started when jail authorities tried to shift a few prisoners to the torture cell known as saat chakki.

To get their demands accepted, prisoners made hostage deputy jail superintendent Rai Muhammad Arif, chief warder Muhammad Iqbal, head warder Zakir Husain and warders Rafiq and Boota. The prisoners also set ablaze the jail record and indulged in rioting. The jail authorities summoned the local police for help which opened fire and started shelling of teargas, injuring 31 prisoners, including five jail employees.

The situation was brought under control after a struggle of six hours and the injured were taken to the Central Jail hospital where condemned prisoner Muhammad Ejaz died. The body was handed over to his relatives after postmortem on Friday who took it to Faisalabad.

Meanwhile, judicial magistrate Muhammad Afzaal Butt has been appointed as inquiry officer and asked to submit his report within a week under intimation to the Chief Justice, Lahore High Court.

Talking to newsmen here on Friday, IGP (Prisons) Pervez Rahim Rajput claimed that unrest and rioting in the Central Jail was done by the prisoners transferred from other jails who were hard criminals.

He said the jail administration had timely foiled the conspiracy hatched by these elements otherwise they would have succeeded in getting released the hard criminals. He alleged that a particular gang of such criminals had conspired to create trouble for prison/jail managements in the province. Some of the criminals had recently been transferred to the Central Jail who tried to get released their colleagues from Block 7 on which the jail authorities took action. At present, he said no action was being taken against jail employees, including the central jail superintendent. Action would only be taken on the recommendations of a judicial probe, the IGP said.

He said DIG Abdul Sattar was also conducting the probe into the central jail happening.