RAWALPINDI: Women inmates of the Adiala jail on Wednesday night created panic after one of their barrack fellows reported breathing problem.

The woman prisoner from Khyber Pakhtunkhua started screaming as she was complaining about breathing disorder, creating panic among other inmates who went to the rooftop and started shouting to draw the jail authorities’ attention on Wednesday night.

The authorities called jail doctor who examined her and declared that she was in a stable condition but she didn’t stop screaming, sending a wave of unrest among other women inmates who gathered outside her barrack in her support and created a protest like situation.

This created panic among the jail authorities who called the reinforcement to avert any untoward situation.

However, the woman inmate who had been convicted for three-year imprisonment in a drug related case was shifted to Benazir Bhutto Hospital where she went through different medical tests and was declared stable by doctors.

When she was shifted back to jail she started screaming again but this time she complained about the chest pain.

The jail doctor examined her again and declared her fit. But when the inmates of her barrack started protest and shouting slogans against jail administration she was shifted to the Rawalpindi Institute of Cardiology (RIC) where specialist doctors carried out medical tests but could not find anything wrong with her heart.

“Basically she was pretending to have serious heart problem,” a prison department official said and added: “she has been normal now.” After RIC doctors found her fit, she was shifted back to Adiala jail.

Published in Dawn, July 15th, 2016