BAHAWALNAGAR, Jan 25: There are 626 prisoners in the District Jail which has the capacity of 176.

There are 55 children, eight women with three infants and 563 men. Of the 563 men, 85 are convicts while 541 are under-trial prisoners.

Jail superintendent Sheikh Ejaz Qadir told this scribe on Saturday that due to over-population, it was hard to provide facilities to the prisoners.

He said he had sent a summary to the high-ups for the construction of two barracks and 32 cells to accommodate prisoners.

Executive district officer (literacy) Amin Nadir told this correspondent that they were running two programmes under Adult Literacy Scheme in the prison. Fifty-eight prisoners were studying at different levels while 250 were reading the Holy Quran, 28 were learning by heart and eight were studying its translation.