KARACHI: The Sindh government has decided to shift condemned prisoners in different jails to the central prison in Karachi before their execution, it emerged on Monday.

A source privy to the recent communiqué to the jail authorities from the Sindh home department hinted at the immediate shifting of at least two convicts from the Sukkur jail to the Karachi central prison.

The two convicts, associated with the banned Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, were Attaullah alias Qasim and Mohammed Azam whose death warrants were suspended by the Sindh High Court on Monday on legal grounds, he said.

“The home department has asked the jail authorities and security administration of the province to make due arrangements for their shifting to the Karachi jail,” the source said. He explained that the two convicts were being shifted to the Karachi prison on the last year order of the SHC that had directed the authorities concerned to move them to Karachi before their execution.

The LJ terrorists were found guilty of killing Dr Ali Raza Peerani on sectarian grounds in June 2001 in the Soldier Bazaar area, the source said. “They were sentenced to death and their appeals against the verdict turned down,” he said.

When they were shifted to the Sukkur prison, the mother of Attaullah, Zohra Khatoon, filed an appeal in the SHC that she could not see him in Sukkur due to her illness and limited resources. The court rejected the appeal after hearing the government argument that the convicts were shifted to Sukkur on “security grounds”. The authorities were, however, ordered to shift the convicts “at least a week before their execution. So the two convicts are set to be shifted to Karachi within the next couple of days.”

Asked about possibility of the shifting of other convicts also, he said it could not be ruled out as both the security agencies and jail administration found the Karachi jail less vulnerable than other prisons in Sindh. “So you may witness more such exercises in the days to come. The inmates shifted to other prisons from Karachi jail over the past few years are associated with banned outfits and political groups. Most of them were convicted in heinous crimes,” the source said.

Published in Dawn, December 23rd, 2014