KARACHI: 33pc interned women not produced in courts
By Our Staff Reporter
KARACHI, Feb 24: The authorities failed to produce around 33 per cent of the inmates of the Karachi Women Prison, belonging to the interior of the province, in courts last month.
According to sources, women prisoners belonging to various districts of Sindh are kept in the prison here as no such facility is available for them in the interior.
They said that a majority of the inmates hailed from Hyderabad while others belonged to Sanghar, Thatta and Umerkot districts.
The condition of those belonging to Thatta and Umerkot was stated to be pathetic as none of them could be produced in courts while 25 per cent of the women belonging to Sanghar and 20 per cent of those from Hyderabad too could not be produced in courts.
All the women prisoners belonging to Karachi were brought to courts for hearings during the month.
In response to a query, Karachi Women Prison’s Superintendent Sheeba Shah told Dawn that 20 out of 25 women belonging to Hyderabad had been produced in courts, whereas only five — 20 per cent — could not be brought to the courts.
Three out of the four inmates belonging to Sanghar, she added, were produced in the courts.
Ms Shah said that none of the three women belonging to Thatta and two from Umerkot could be produced for their hearings.
“The responsibility to produce the inmates in courts rests with the court police which sometimes due to emergency, etc., could not take the prisoners to courts for hearings.”
She said that the court police, administratively attached with the police department and headed by a superintendent, have a small fleet of vehicles to transport the under-trial prisoners from jail to courts.
The women jail chief said that the courts always issued show- cause notices to the prison authorities for non-production of the UTPs, while it was the responsibility of the court police to transport the prisoners to courts.
She said that the court police, accompanied by policewomen, took the inmates from jail early in the morning to their respective courts in the interior of the province and brought them back in the evening.
However, sources said that the personnel of the court police, though very fewer in number, were also being used by the range police for additional duties such as deploying them for maintaining law and order or on protocol duties for VVIPs.
They said production of UTPs in courts could not be a priority for the court police as long as it was under the administrative control of the police department.
Moreover, many women prisoners are even unable to engage lawyers due to financial constraints.
However, lawyers dealing with some of the cases alleged that their clients were not being produced in courts by the authorities who had adopted a “discriminatory” policy towards the inmates belonging to the interior of Sindh.
They said the production rate of the UTPs in the anti-terrorism, accountability, banking, anti-corruption, customs and anti-narcotics courts was higher than those in the ordinary courts, whereas women inmates, particularly those belonging to the interior, were nowhere in the priority.
