November 20, 2002	Wednesday	Ramazan 14, 1423

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LARKANA, Nov 19: There are a total of 1,300 prisoners at the Central Prison, Larkana, even though it is meant for only 410 prisoners. As a result of the prison being overcrowded, various diseases are breaking out.

Prison sources said on Tuesday that the overcrowding may cause a security risk for the prison administration.

They said that the central prison, Larkana, had no budget allocation for medicines and an excessive number of prisoners was giving rise to skin and other diseases there.

They said that the jail had been given the status of central prison in 1998 and it did not have any of the facilities which a central prison should have in terms of staff, budget, and barracks, and added that the staff requirement of a central prison ranged between 200 and 250 while the Central Prison Larkana had only 97.

The jail superintendent said that the urgent need was for constructing new barracks so as to accommodate the prisoners comfortably and avoid diseases.

He said that last year three prisoners suffocated to death.

He said that if the construction of the hospital at the prison, work on which had been abandoned halfway, was completed it could benefit the prisoners in receiving emergency cover more easily.

He said that to overcome the water problem, the women wing of the Sindh Graduates Association had recently provided 14 overhead water tanks and even bore the installation cost.

Sources said that the prison did not have a drainage system and the stagnant water around the prison was aggravating the situation further for prisoners.

They said that the prisoners hailing from Shikarpur and Khairpur districts lodged at the Central Prison Larkana were not regularly produced in the courts due to non-availability of a police squad.