LARKANA: The three-member committee constituted by the Larkana deputy commissioner to investigate the July 1 escape of three inmates of Darul Aman has held the policemen deployed at the building and a watchman on night duty responsible for the security lapse that helped the women make good their escape.

It also suggested that the assistant director of the Darul Aman demonstrated gross negligence in the episode.

Three women -- Nusrat Buledi, 24, (Garhi Khairo), Nooran Chandio, 22, (Warah) and Muskan Shaikh, 32, (Khairpur) -- escaped from the Darul Aman by cutting the iron grille of the window of an upper storey. They are still at large.

The Waleed police had produced Darul Aman assistant director Mukhtiar Khatoon Abbasi, the four policemen -- Mohammed Mithal, Mohammed Azam, Raja Khan and Abdul Wahab -- and the watchman, Allah Bukhsh Brohi, before a magistrate on July 19 to seek a 14-day police remand but the magistrate sent them to jail on a three-day judicial remand.

On Monday, Ms Abbasi was released on bail after she furnished the surety bond. The investigation officer, SI Nazeer Ahmed Mangi, produced the watchman before him again for an extension in his remand but the magistrate declined the request and gave him into judicial custody till July 23 and granted him a bail in a sum of Rs50,000.

In the 15-page report submitted to DC Ganhwar Ali Leghari on Tuesday night by the committee, it was stated that connivance of one or more policemen on duty with the watchman could not be ruled out.

The inquiry report found that the four policemen deployed at the gate of the Darul Aman building failed to discharge their professional duty of providing external security to Darul Aman while there was likelihood of outside support in the incident.

“Showing the broken iron grill is an eyewash as the space thus made is so small that no one can pass through it,” the committee observed in its report.

Additional Deputy Commissioner-II Saifullah Abro headed the committee, whose other members were Assistant Commissioner Dr Masood Bhutto and Deputy District Social Welfare Officer Dr Amir Abro.

The committee recorded statements of 16 inmates and staff members, and suggested that Allah Bakhsh Brohi had aided and abetted the escape; he had been providing mobile phone facilities to the women; other inmates in their statements told the committee that before breaking the window grille the three women used mobile phones with the help of the watchman. The woman in charge of Darul Aman (Ms Abbasi) knowingly avoided reporting the activities of the watchman to the high-ups, it added.

Describing the pros and cons of the issue as ‘sensitive and serious’, the committee called for putting in place a proper security system, besides evolving a mechanism to record the data of visitors to Darul Aman in order to prevent recurrence of such incidents in future.

The time of visitors’ entry, exit and stay in the building should also be recorded on the pattern of prisons, it said, and stressed the need for devising a mechanism to keep a record of donations collected and food provided to inmates, observing that no such such things were being maintained at the shelter house.

The committee also recommended appointment of a woman in charge/matron at the Darul Aman during night hours.

Published in Dawn, July 24th , 2014