July 11, 2006	Tuesday	Jumadi-ul-Sani 14, 1427

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PESHAWAR, July 10: The provincial prisons department has not received any instructions about to the ordinance for release on bail of women prisoners not involved in heinous crimes, leaving them and their relatives in confusion.

“We have not been issued any directives and the ordinance has also not been sent to us till now,” said an official of the department.

Relatives of the inmates have been visiting prisons in the province daily since Friday, when federal Women Development Minister Sumaira Malik announced that about 1,300 women would be released.

“When I have to go to a court for the release of my aunt on bail, why the minister made the wrong statement on television,” said Khan Mohammad of Nowshera, who had come to the central prison here on Monday, expecting that the woman arrested in a narcotics case would be released. He said he had also gone to the prison on Saturday.

A total of 298 women are in 22 prisons in the province. Of them, 185 are under-trial prisoners, whereas 113 have been convicted.

At least 85 convicted and 57 under-trial women prisoners have been imprisoned under the Control of Narcotics Substance Act. Only five women have been convicted under the zina ordinance, whereas 63 are undergoing trials under the law.

According to figures given by the prisons department, 28 women are facing trials on charges of murder, whereas 14 have been convicted of the crime.

“Through the presidential ordinance, an amendment has been incorporated in Section 497 of the Criminal Procedure Code and all the offences have been made bailable for women, except certain crimes, including murder and terrorism. However, it does not mean that these categories of women prisoners would be released automatically,” said Noor Alam Khan, Chairman of the Voice of Prisoners.

He said a number of women in Peshawar central prison had approached him and “I have been facing difficulty in convincing them that the statement of the federal minister was only political and they have to move the court for getting bail.”

He added that only the court concerned could order release of an under-trial prisoner on bail.