A picture of neglect and mismanagement by the officials at the helm, the jail is without clean drinking water, proper lighting and even security which is imperative for keeping an eye on the captives. If there is negligence by the district administration, the provincial buildings department is equally to be blamed.
It is alleged that the buildings department used substandard material during the construction of its building that was completed in December 2005 at a cost of Rs160 million. In 2006, hardly a few months later, its boundary wall collapsed owing to rain. Raised anew, it is now facing the threat of waterlogging and salinity.
Sources told Dawn that the lighting system for the building left much to be improved as even before the captives were brought here and the jail officially took off, the entire electricity wiring and streetlights were burnt. After checking, the buildings department officials installed 50 lights on the boundary wall but that, too, of inferior quality.
There are streetlights and lighting inside the jail, in the residential area for the staff, the staff club, post office, dispensary, shops and watch tower but they hardly give enough light.
Sources said as against the requirement of 20 searchlights there were only seven and they were not connected with the main power supply. The wire gauze shed did not fulfill the requirement of security through which any kind of contraband could be taken to the barracks.
The 250kv electric generator installed in the jail at the time of its construction is not operational at present. Also it has been placed where it shouldn’t have been. Given the loadshedding pattern, it should have stirred the security-conscious officials into action.
There are 350 jail inmates, 11 of them children, who don’t have clean drinking water. The turbine water analysis report shows that the water being provided to the jail is unfit for human consumption as it is for washing and other purposes. The underground water available to the city too is not fit for drinking and domestic use for it is hazardous.
The district government has been providing water to the entire city population by installing more than 15 turbines on the bank of the Pakpattan Canal since 1967. But the turbines installed in the jail do no good to the inmates who face hardships, especially in sultry weather.
Around 115 wardens are working in the jail against the requirement of 220 — a lapse of which the authorities concerned must take immediate notice.
In June last year when the jail started functioning for the first time, over 200 prisoners were shifted to it from the Multan jail but they returned within a month after many of them contracted ailments due to use of water. Now the situation has gone from bad to worse.
Various district government representatives, including district nazim Syed Shahid Mehdi and DCO Babar Hassan Bharwana, have paid many visits to the Vehari district jail and promised to provide the facilities, but no practical step has been taken to improve things.
The district council had recently approved the resolution for installation of water filtration plants in the jail and shed for the relatives of the prisoners, but how long it will take can be anybody’s guess.
Jail Superintendent Qadeer Alam said it was the buildings department officials who should be blamed for structural flaws and missing facilities. But the authorities concerned, however, had assured him of fulfilling all the requirements of the jail, he said.
He said owing to insufficient security measures, the under-trial captives involved in heinous crimes had not been shifted to the Vehari jail.
Sources said more than 2,000 prisoners belonging to Vehari had been detained in jails in Multan, Sahiwal and other parts of Punjab.
Sub-engineer (of buildings department) Muhammad Moosa denied use of substandard material in the jail construction and said his department had provided all possible facilities.