KARACHI: The security establishment has decided to launch search operations in other prisons of Sindh after a recent operation carried out in the Karachi central prison led to the recovery of illegal cell phones, television sets, internet and anti-jamming devices, drugs and millions of rupees, officials said.

The search operation inside the Karachi central prison was led by Pakistan Rangers, Sindh and they were assisted by the Pakistan army, intelligence agencies and police. The operation was conducted following the daring escape of two militants of the banned Lashkar-i-Jhangvi from the prison earlier this month.

The officials said that the provincial administration on the advice of the security establishment decided to expand the operations to other prisons in Sindh.

“I have called a meeting with IG-Prisons and DG-Rangers to devise a strategy,” Sindh prisons minister Zia-ul-Hasan Lanjar told Dawn. “The operation at the central prison and the seizure convinced us to move for a similar exercise in other prisons of the province. Such operations would be carried out in phases.”

He said prisons in Hyderabad and Sukkur were on top priority for carrying out search operations.

In a sweeping operation on June 19 conducted inside the Karachi central jail, the Rangers seized hundreds of mobile phones, dozens of TV sets and over Rs3.5 million cash. The security agencies during the exercise also found an active mobile phone network in the prison which was being run with the help of modern devices to avoid the impact of jammers installed there.

The Rangers led the snoop — the first of its kind in the past 25 years — that led to the recovery of the items not allowed under the jail manual and included physical search of around 6,000 prisoners belonging to all political, religious and banned outfits in different barracks.

Though the prisons in Karachi are overcrowded, the authorities believe the exercise should also be conducted in other prisons of Sindh where hundreds of suspected militants and hitmen associated with different banned outfits and political parties were languishing.

“Apart from the plan of the provincial government, there is an advice from Nacta [National Counter Terrorism Authority] to conduct search operations in Sindh prisons,” said an official, requesting not to be named. “So in this context, it’s quite possible that we would see such exercises in other prisons of Sindh very soon.”

The official said that the use of facilities and other goods, which are not allowed under the jail manual, by certain number of inmates was not a new phenomena. “The alarming fact is existence of organised set-up which operates through different sources and technological support.”

The two jails in Karachi are reported to be the most overcrowded among the 25 prisons of Sindh as both house close to three times the inmates than their actual capacity.

A recent report prepared by the prisons department said that the Karachi central prison, the second-oldest jail after Hyderabad, built in 1899, houses 6,174 prisoners against the authorised capacity of 2,400 inmates.

Published in Dawn, June 26th, 2017