HYDERABAD, April 27 Justice Amir Hani Muslim of the Sindh High Court's Hyderabad circuit bench ordered on Monday to shift an under-trial prisoner Shahrukh Khanzada to Liaquat University Hospital's city branch to be examined by three senior most professors of surgery and a physician to ascertain if his injuries were self inflicted or otherwise.

He asked inspector general of prisons and home secretary (special) to appear in court on May 4 to brief it on management of prisons in the province.

The court directed that the prisoner should not be shifted from the hospital till further orders and ruled out any involvement of police surgeon or medico-legal officer (MLO) in his examination for submission of medical report.

DIG prisons Allauddin Abbasi, prison chief Guzlar Channa, Aijaz Hyder Hyderi, Medical Superintendent LUH Dr Abdul Jabbar Shaikh, jail hospital doctor Dr Altaf Memon and UTP Shahrukh Khanzada appeared in court after the judge took suo motu notice of the reports published in the press about torture of the UTP allegedly in jail. A report submitted by a sessions judge who had recorded Khanzada's statement in jail under court orders also confirmed that the judge had seen marks of torture and other UTPs had supported Khanzada's version.

The judge admonished superintendent of central jail in the course of proceedings and observed that he was disappointed by the conduct of the jail official and the officer supervising him although Additional Advocate General (AAG) Allah Bachayo Soomro tried his best to defend the two officials as best as as he could.

He observed that “since the officials failed to reply to queries about management of jail let IG prisons and secretary home (special) appear in person and explain why laws are not being followed by prison administration”.

The court was surprised to learn that prison chief had admitted that he did not visit jail daily and that he had come to know about the incident on April 23.

The superintendent insisted that the injuries were self-inflicted but neither he nor jail doctor could satisfy the court as to why requirements of laws were not being complied with.

The court found during examination of the register that the last entry of injury had been made on Aug 12, 2008 and with regard to Khanzada only 26/4 had been written. The court observed that it showed how cleanly the record had been prepared.

The court observed that prison chief had failed to explain as to how mobile phones were easily available in jail and when he did not visit the jail as per chapter-50 of Jail Rules then such issues were bound to occur.

The judge told prison chief that he was not discharging his responsibilities. “You (superintendent) should get laws changed, if you are unable to abide by them,” he said.

AAG Soomro said that the incident took place between the night of Aug 16 and 17 while the jail administration came to know about it on April 23.

He argued that prison officials were confused and under mental stress following recent riots and agreed with court's observation that the prison chief was bound to make entry about injuries in the register when a prisoner entered jail and he had injuries on his body.

He admitted that prison officials were not sufficiently aware of rules. “You are mixing things up Mr Soomro,” Justice Muslim observed and added that when the UTP appeared in trial court, prison chief did not inform IG prisons, home secretary and trial court about the injuries.