KARACHI, Jan 9: The Special Prison for Women in the city is still overcrowded, holding prisoners about twice its capacity, though nearly 45 women prisoners belonging to the interior of the province have been shifted to the newly-established women jail in Hyderabad, it is learnt.
The sources said that the capacity of the women prison was 103 prisoners, but at present there were 232 prisoners alongwith their 46 children, aged from one month to over nine years, having no other place to go, they were compelled to stay with their imprisoned mothers, without any of their fault.
They said that out of the total 232 women ( 164 local and 68 foreigners), only 51 women (nearly 22 per cent) were convicted, while the rest 179 (that is nearly 77 per cent) were under trial prisoners, while two were under detention.
The sources said that break up of the convicted and under trial prisoners showed that less local prisoners were convicted as compared to the foreign prisoners.
They said that out of 164 local women prisoners, only 20 (around 39 per cent) were convicted, where as out of 67 foreigners, 31 (nearly 46 per cent) were convicted and two were detained. Almost all the foreigners were facing drug-related charges.
The sources said that the highest number of local women, which was 64, were in prison under the charges of zina, and only one of them had been convicted, while rest were still under trial. The second biggest group of women prisoners (47) was facing murder charges and out of it, 11 were convicted, while 36 were still being tried, they added.
Twenty-one women were facing charges of kidnapping, of whom four had been convicted and 17 were being tried, while other crimes in which women were accused were dacoity, theft, narcotics, assaults, arms, etc, they said.
The sources said that earlier many women, whose cases were registered in the interior of the province, could not be produced in their respective courts for hearings, but with the shifting of the women prisoners to the Hyderabad Women Prison last month, the number of non-productions in the courts had decreased considerably.
Responding to the Dawn queries, Superintendent of Special Prison for Women, Sheeba Shah, confirmed that now more women were being produced on their hearings in the courts than earlier.
Giving last year data, she said that in July, 490 production orders were issued by the courts and 81 could not be produced, in August 570 orders were issued and 26 could not be produced, in September 491 orders were issued and 34 could not be produced, in October 545 orders were issued and 48 could not be produced, in November 419 orders were issued and 74 could not be produced and in December 189 orders were issued and only 13 could not be produced. The reason for non production was unavailability of police escort.
She said that presently the Karachi women prison was over crowded, but soon a new barrack would be constructed and housing problem would be solved considerably. She said that a few week back 44 women, alongwith their 12 children, were shifted to Hyderabad. Only two of these women were convicted as majority of them could not be produced in the court on every hearing.
Pointing out an issue of the jail staff, she said that as the Karachi women jail was not yet notified, so all the women staff was in fact on the strength of the Larkana Women Jail, and was working here on deputation.
One of the problems was that the staff always gets its salary usually in the third week of month. She said that owing to the assistance from various non-governmental organizations, the inmates of the women prison get clothes, etc, while inmates of other women jails, Hyderabad, Larkana, and Sukkur (which has just two barracks for women), were not as lucky. She said that now, whenever NGOs come to her with assistance she urged them to shift their attention to other women jails as well, so that living conditions of prisoners could also improve there.