PESHAWAR, Aug 25: Inspector-General of Prisons Abdur Rauf has said that the number of juvenile offenders released on probation rose to 103 since the implementation of the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance, 2000, in the NWFP.

A press release issued here on Monday, the deputy national coordinator of the Society for the Protection of Rights of the Child (SPARC), Arshad Mahmood, and Provincial Coordinator Jehanzeb Khan held a meeting with the IG and discussed various issues related to the well being of prisoners in general and the juvenile offenders in particular.

Mr Rauf informed the SPARC officials that work was in the initial stages on the construction of borstal jails in Bannu and Peshawar.

Replying to a question about the status of Adolescent Training Centre, Haripur, he said that it would be given a status of Borstal Institute and Juvenile Jail and a PC-I with a proposed budget of Rs11 million was with the planning and development Department for approval. “As soon as the PC-I is approved work would begin on the conversion of the ATC into borstal jail under the government and the Asian Development Bank’s Access to Justice Programme,” said the IG.

The officials of the SPARC also informed the IG about the problems faced by the prisoners including women and juveniles, belonging to Hangu, in the Kohat district jail. Particularly about the delay in their trials due to their absence from courts and suggested if the juveniles could be shifted to the judicial lock up in Hangu or the lock up could be handed over to the prisons department.

Mr Rauf said that the prisons department was lacking human resources and was not in a position to take over the judicial lock up, however, jail site had been selected and 328 Kanals of land had already been transferred in the name of the prisons department by the government.

About the shifting of juvenile prisoners in Faisalabad borstal jail to Haripur, belonging to the NWFP, the IG said that he had given his consent to the home department and had no objection.

He also informed SPARC that probation department was working actively to release maximum number of juvenile inmates on probation and the number of juveniles on probation rose as high as 103.