LAHORE: The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Tuesday expressed dismay at delay in construction of a separate jail for juvenile prisoners in Faisalabad and not making high-security jail of Sahiwal functional.

Justice Farrukh Irfan Khan lamented that the prisons department had been sitting idle despite the court directions.

Hearing a public interest petition seeking construction of new jails in Punjab, the judge rejected a progress report on the construction of new jails in the province and observed that it was highly inappropriate to keep juveniles with adults and hardened criminals in jails.

“It is a serious issue and the court cannot ignore it,” he added.

Justice Khan also lambasted the government for detaining hardened criminals with ordinary prisoners and observed that construction of a high security jail was need of the hour because keeping dangerous criminals in ordinary jail would risk the lives of all prisoners.

The petitioner’s counsel Syed Moazzam Ali Shah pleaded that had the government departments not showed lack of coordination, the construction of the jails would have completed four year ago.

The judge issued show cause notices to secretaries of home, finance and communication & works departments for defying the court’s orders.

The counsel further stated the construction work of Mianwali jail had almost finished, only electricity polls had not been installed due to a stand-off between Faisalabad Electric Supply Company (Fesco) and the railways.

At this, the judge issued show cause notices to managing director of Fesco and deputy superintendent railways Rawalpindi. The judge also directed the finance department to release funds for completion of Lodhran jail before adjourning the hearing of the case for a week.

Published in Dawn, February 27th, 2019