LARKANA: The Larkana central jail administration has been facing threat of violence involving most of the over 1,000 inmates amid unrest since July 7 (when Liaquat Ali Pirzada was removed as the superintendent of the prison).

Inmates, demanding unlawful favours, started defying the jail police’s orders the very next day and the latter failed to even persuade them to return to their barracks and remain inside till July 10. They were demanding posting of a new jail chief on a permanent basis and liberty to keep and use mobile phones, rugs, liquor etc. They also dared to demand that there should be no check on ‘supplies’ to them [of forbidden articles] from outside the jail.

Inmates demand undue favours, attempt to hold staff hostage

After five days of unrest, the DIG prisons (Sukkur) on July 11 intervened and somehow managed to persuade the inmates to at least obey the order of remaining in their barracks, after their daily routine unlocking for different work outside as part of their punishment. During these five days, the inmates kept holding protests to force the jail administration to fulfil their demands.

When Ashfaq Ahmed Kalwar was posted as the new superintendent of the prison on July 28, he had been in the knowledge of the situation.

“The inmates have been holding protests only to blackmail the jail administration ... they want to keep the articles not allowed under the jail manual,” he told Dawn.

His PRO through a press release said that after suspension of Liaquat Ali Pirzada as jail superintendent on July 7, the inmates started protest and refused to be locked up [in their barracks] for three days, July 8 to 10. On the intervention of the DIG prisons (Sukkur), they had agreed to be locked up until a permanent superintendent was posted, he said.

Although a new jail chief had now been posted, the unrest inside the prison prevailed, sources said.

The PRO also revealed that the inmates had been receiving and keeping the forbidden articles during the period of suspended jail chief. He said the inmates were still mounting pressure on the jail administration and threatening to resist any operation if carried out.

According to sources, the incumbent jail chief, Ashfaq Kalwar, had already brought the facts into the knowledge of the quarters concerned.

The PRO’s statement also reveals that inmates keep a large stock of forbidden items and possibility of deadly weapons/instruments kept by some of them cannot be ruled out.

While the jail administration has decided not to give in to inmates’ unlawful and unjustifiable demands, efforts were on to bring an end to the unrest without going for an operation, which was bound to cause physical harm to defiant protesters.

The most serious revelation made in the PRO’s statement is that the inmates [during their protests] made several attempts to take the prison and medical staff hostage. All such attempts were foiled by the jail administration, he said.

He said that inmates had been using their mobile phones for “propaganda” to seek sympathy of the general public and particularly the media. “... The fabricated and staged videos of their protests are widely circulated on the national, local and social media without official version,” he pointed out.

He made it clear that the writ of the law in the jail would be restored without extending any unlawful favour to any inmate.

The Larkana Central Prison has at the moment 1,033 prisoners against it capacity of 650. There are 111 inmates who have been sentenced to death, 334 are lifers, 94 have been convicted of different crimes and 482 are facing trial. Another two are foreign nationals.

Published in Dawn, August 1st, 2021