KARACHI, Aug 2: Waseem Akhtar, Adviser to the Sindh Chief Minister on Home Affairs, has said that additional barracks will be constructed in Karachi, Malir and Hyderabad jails and 133 additional prisoners’ vans will be provided to the jail administration as part of the jail reforms programme.

He also directed jail officials to monitor their staff in terms of conduct towards inmates.

He was speaking at a wages and certificate distribution ceremony at the Central Prison Karachi on Thursday held to recognise the efforts of prisoners who had worked on shuttle-less power looms, tailoring, embroidery and woodwork in various jails of Sindh.

The home adviser said that the present government has not repeated the culture of putting political opponents in jail.

Special Secretary Home Affairs Rasheed Alam said that the public image of jails needed to be improved as society generally considered jails to be breeding grounds of criminals rather than institutions of reform. He said the situation was particularly bad in jails located in the interior of Sindh, where inmates regularly protested against the behaviour of the jail administration.

Provincial Adviser on Jail Affairs Ayub Shaikh appreciated the fact that inmates were being paid for their work unlike in the past when jail administrators kept the funds for themselves.

Sindh Inspector-General Prisons Sindh Yameen Khan said that a PC-I by the Sindh government had been finalised to set up a technical training unit at each jail.

He said that 50 per cent of Sindh’s jail population was in Karachi’s jails. These inmates could be rehabilitated by providing them proper training. He appreciated the efforts of civil society and different NGOs in this regard.

Earlier, certificates were distributed among 21 inmates who had completed a rehabilitation course organised by an NGO in the Karachi Jail.—PPI