HYDERABAD, April 13: Under-trial prisoner (UTP) Nadeem Mubarak, who had been lying unconscious in the intensive care unit of the Civil Hospital since February 11, died here on Monday night.

He was shifted from Nara special prison and admitted to the hospital after he fell unconscious there. He was involved in an arms ordinance case lodged under Section 13-D by the Phulelli police.

He was charge-sheeted in November 2002. The hospital authorities requested the Liaquat University of Medical & Health Sciences (LUMHS) to constitute a medical board for medical examination of the UTP.

A source said that the UTP had taken some tablets from another jail inmate who was suffering from mental disorder. The source further said that the medicine might the caused the medical condition of the UTP.

Nara prison superintendent Nusrat Mangan denied that the prisoner had been subjected to torture. He said that the prisoner had fallen unconscious in the jail ward and had immediately been shifted to the hospital.

According to a doctor at the ICU, a three-member medical board, comprising Professor Dr Allah Bachayo Memon, head of the department of medicines, Professor of neuro surgery Dr Aftab Memon and Professor G.M.Kazi of the department of anaesthesia, medically examined the prisoner and gave its opinion that there was no chance of the UTP regaining consciousness because his brain had been damaged.

The doctor claimed that the board had also established that there was lack of oxygen in prisoner's brain.