IN Pakistan, ensuring that dangerous suspects and convicts are kept in detention is a major task, especially considering the several high-profile jailbreaks that have occurred in this country in the recent past.

The last such incident was the jailbreak in Gilgit-Baltistan, in which some inmates suspected of involvement in 2013’s Nanga Parbat massacre managed to escape. With this bitter experience in mind, the GB authorities have sought to transfer 20 high-profile inmates to detention facilities in Punjab. What is troubling is that officials told this paper they feared a fresh jailbreak was possible.

Considering the remoteness of the region and its limited resources and infrastructure, it appears to be a good idea to shift dangerous prisoners to Punjab, which has relatively better facilities.

Also read: 20 high-profile prisoners being shifted from Gilgit to Punjab

Some officials have raised concerns about how trials will be conducted, considering GB’s physical distance from the rest of Pakistan; this problem can be largely overcome through the use of technology, for example by conducting the trials through video link.

The move by the administration highlights the need for better prison facilities in Gilgit-Baltistan. While shifting dangerous inmates to Punjab or elsewhere in the country may be one solution, it is only a temporary fix; in the long run, improvements need to be made to GB’s criminal justice infrastructure to minimise the chance of future jailbreaks.

Also, while Punjab may indeed have better facilities, these are by no means foolproof. For example, even some key prisons in the province, such as Adiala in Rawalpindi, are said to be vulnerable to terrorist attacks. What is needed countrywide is a series of maximum-security prison facilities to detain terrorism convicts and suspects.

Punjab is due to bring such a facility online in Sahiwal shortly, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in the past has talked of building a similar high-security jail. But such facilities are needed in all provinces and regions considering the enormity of the threat militancy poses to the country.

Along with more secure detention facilities, what is required is a thorough exercise to conduct background checks of jail staff members whose duties demand interaction with terrorism convicts or suspects.

In the GB jailbreak case, the inmates were said to have ‘brainwashed’ jail officials while prison staffers are believed to have been complicit in their escape. Measures need to be taken so that extremist inmates don’t mingle with ordinary prisoners, and jail staffers guarding them don’t turn out to be sympathetic to the militants’ cause.

Published in Dawn March 16th , 2015

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