KARACHI, Dec 20: The government of Sindh has yet to comply with the Supreme Court’s directive to initiate the expansion of the police lock-up in the City Courts.

Following the directive of the then chief justice of Pakistan, Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, the Sindh Home Secretary, Brig (retd) Ghulam Mohammed Mohtaram, Special Home Secretary Rasheed Alam and IG (Prisons) Mohammed Yameen Khan visited the undertrial prisoners’ lock-up in the City Courts on Aug 15 and pledged that expansion work would begin within a week. However, the work has so far not been started.

The lock-up was built in 1940 for a small number of prisoners and is insufficient for current needs. Furthermore, said an official of the lock-up, it stands at a very low level and when it rains, both the staff and the undertrial prisoners face great hardship.

During a meeting with government officials at the Karachi Bar Association (KBA) office, KBA office-bearers had earlier suggested that canteens 1 and 2, including the cabins, be demolished in order to expand the lock-up area. An architect accompanying the officials had been asked to prepare a design in this regard.

Particular hardship is faced when prison vans are parked in front of the lock-up’s main gate in order to pick and drop undertrial prisoners. The facility’s staff had therefore suggested that the lock-up’s main gate be opened on Raja Riaz Shaheed Road [formerly Lewis Road] so that prison vans could enter the enclosure directly.

The secretary general of the KBA, Naeem Qureshi, told Dawn that a feasibility report for the expansion of the lock-up had been prepared by the Sindh chief engineering officer but for some reason, the work had not yet been started. He criticised the former provincial government for not initiating any welfare programme for the KBA.

Talking about the extension of the bar room, Mr Qureshi said that during an Oct 27 meeting held at the Sindh High Court, the KBA leadership, district and sessions judges and officials of the election commission had decided that the old barracks in the City Courts would be handed over to the association for the extension of the bar room. The barracks were later handed over to the KBA, he said, but the extension work could not be initiated because a state of emergency was imposed on the country on Nov 3. Now, however, the extension work would start soon since the capacity of the existing bar room was insufficient for the increasing numbers of the lawyers.

According to Mr Qureshi, the existing bar room was established in 1973 when the number of KBA members stood at around 900. Currently, however, the association has nearly ten thousand members.