LARKANA: Sindh Inspe­ctor General of Prisons Qazi Nazeer Ahmed on Tuesday ruled out installation of jammers at Larkana jail, where rioting by inmates has been a chronic issue for a couple of years.

During his visit to the jail on Tuesday, he told reporters that he was not in favour of installing jammers as this would ultimately hamper official communicationi as well.

Senior Superintendent of the Larkana Central Prison Ashfaq Kalwar briefed the IG about the extensive damage caused to its properties during the recent rioting, and also about the operation clean-up that followed to recover prohibited items and the ongoing repair and renovation work.

He informed the IG that over 500 mobile phones, many iron rods, several room air coolers and a host of other prohibited items were found and seized from inm­ates during the operation.

The IG appreciated the jail chief for his handling of the unrest and carrying out the operation clean-up without any harm having been cau­s­ed to inmates or jail officials.

He observed that inmates were injured or even killed whenever such operations were conducted in prisons, and gave the example of Hyderabad jail, where eight prisoners were killed during a similar search operation. But the recent operation clean-up in this jail remained completely peaceful and no one was hurt, he noted.

“The credit goes to Ashfaq Kalwar,” the IG said, and announced reward for him.

He said that a strategy to deal with unrest, rioting and hostage-taking by inmates was being chalked out. He was referring to an episode in the Larkana Central Prison where eight to 10 policemen were held hostage by inmates during rioting in February this year to press the authorities concerned to accept their demands.

Published in Dawn, June 22nd, 2022