KARACHI: On the directive of provincial home department, jail authorities have recently relocated around 80 convicted and at least 60 undertrial prisoners (UTPs) from the Karachi Central Prison to other detention facilities of the province after a jailbreak involving two undertrial prisoners in June.

The trials of shifted UTPs have, therefore, been stalled before the antiterrorism courts of Karachi for want of custody, it emerged on Tuesday.

According to the documents, most of the shifted prisoners were associated with banned outfits including Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, Jundullah, Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat and Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan.

Most of the 140 prisoners belong to banned outfits

The condemned and convicted prisoners were relocated to Hyderabad, Sukkur, Larkana and Khairpur jails while the UTPs were shifted to the Sukkur prison due to security concerns after the June 13 escape of two militants from the premises of Karachi Central Prison.

However, the authorities concerned have not transferred the cases of shifted UTPs to Sukkur ATCs and their trial is still pending before the ATCs in Karachi.

The sources said that the jail authorities had shifted the UTPs without the permission of the judges of trial courts.

The authorities concerned have yet to come up with any decision whether the trial of the UTPs would be held in their present detention facilities or they would be sent back to the Karachi Central Prison.

The cases pending mostly pertain to sectarian killings, bomb blasts and targeted killing of the personnel of law enforcement agencies.

The delay in their trial is not only against the spirit of the antiterror law but it may also damage the prosecution side as it is generally believed that a delayed trial mostly benefits the accused.

According to the legal requirement under Section 19(7) of the Anti-Terrorism Act, the cases should have been decided within a period of seven days after indictment.

Legal experts believe that instead of improving the security arrangements at central prison the authorities have shifted the UTPs without the trial courts’ approval though the provincial government has the services of the paramilitary Rangers and police at its disposal.

It may be recalled that a sessions judge had visited the central prison a couple of weeks ago and observed in his report that the security situation at the British-era detention facility was still unsatisfactory as there was not only a shortage of guards but also equipment and held the provincial government responsible for the miserable situation in the prison.

The judge had also made many recommendations to the authorities concerned to improve the situation.

The process of shifting the UTPs and convicts was started in August and the jail authorities have so far transferred around 30 convicts and 15 condemned prisoners to Hyderabad prison, around 10 convicted and eight condemned prisoners to Larkana jail, 10 convicted prisoners were relocated to Khairpur prison and four convicts and five prisoners on death row shifted to Sukkur jail.

Undertrial prisoners

The UTPs shifted from Karachi due to security concerns are Ishaq alias Bobby and Mohammad Asim alias Ahmed alias Capri, belonging to the banned Lashkar-i-Jhangvi (LJ), the LJ’s suspected chief Mohammad Ajmal alias Akram Lahori, and other LJ activists including Waseem alias Barudi, Mohammad Abdullah alias Taimoor, Hafiz Akhlaq, Talha alias Vicki, Kazim Ali Shah, Obaid-ur-Rehman and Mohammad Shahab alias Chhotu.

Other shifted suspects include Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat’s (ASWJ) suspected activists Abdul Razzaq and Qari Inayatullah; TTP’s alleged militants Umar Farooq alias Fareed ullah, Asif Zaheer and Rashid Siddiqui; Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan’s suspected activists Mohammad Tauseef Ansari, Salahuddin and Maulana Mohammad Rashid as well as Jundullah’s Mohammad Qasim Toori and Danish alias Talha.

Ishaq alias Bobby and Asim alias Capri have been booked for their alleged involvement in around 25 cases of targeted killing including the murder of Amjad Sabri, sectarian killings and attack on the personnel of army, Rangers and police.

Akram Lahori is facing trial in three sectarian killing cases of 2002; Waseem, Abdullah and Hafiz Akhlaq are being tied for allegedly killing Muttahida Qaumi Movement MPA Syed Raza Haider along with his police guard in a mosque in Nazimabad area in Aug 2012.

Talha, Kazim, Obaid and Shahab have been booked for allegedly killing MQM MPA Sajid Qureshi and his young son Waqas Qureshi in June 2013 outside a mosque in North Nazimabad.

Abdul Razzaq and Inayatullah have been charged with allegedly killing Azhar Hussain and Zain Ali, the scouts performing Muharram duty, within the remit of Solider Bazaar police station in Nov 2011.

Umar Farooq has been accused of allegedly attacking a polio vaccination team in the Ahsanabad area in Dec 2013.

Asif and Rashid have been facing trial for allegedly providing logistic support, funds and weapons to around 10 attackers who stormed the airport in June 2014 and were killed in an operation.

Tauseef, Salahuddin and Maulana Rashid have been charged with allegedly killing three lawyers on sectarian ground in Arambagh in 2012.

Qasim Toori and his two accomplices are facing trial for allegedly attacking the convoy of a corps commander in 2004 while the military court had sentenced them to death in Jan 2008.

Most of the shifted UTPs were among the prisoners who had been moved to other prisons of Sindh in 2012 on identical grounds and a few years later they were shifted back to Karachi.

Published in Dawn, November 1st, 2017