Police officials deputed to escort under-trial prisoners from Adiala Jail to district courts are continuously violating law by allowing these prisoners to take their meal and meet with their near and dear ones outside the district court premises. The illegal practice has helped several prisoners to escape from the police custody in the past. A number of officials of capital police who bring prisoners from Adiala Jail allow prisoners to have their lunch after their hearings in the restaurants situated outside the court premises. “They also unlock prisoners’ handcuffs during their lunch or refreshment for which prisoners are paying”, a relative of an under trial prisoner, seeking anonymity, told Pakistan Today on Tuesday.
He alleged the police officials took bribes for allowing the prisoners to have their lunch and meet with their relatives. The relatives of the prisoners not only pay for the meals but also arrange comfortable vehicles for bringing the prisoners from jail to the courts at the behest of policemen”, he added. “A prisoner is a prisoner after all and opening his handcuffs outside jail and allowing him to have his meal in a restaurant or meeting with his kin is an absolute violation of law”, a senior police official told Pakistan Today on the condition of anonymity.
He said that it was the responsibility of policemen to escort prisoners from Adiala Jail to courts and from courts to jail without any stay. Police high-ups need to take notice of this violation, otherwise the practice may create problems like some prisoners’ escapes in the past”, he said. Another senior official said that allowing prisoners to take their lunch after hearing was a violation of the law. He said it was the responsibility of the district administration to provide similar facilities to the prisoners coming to attend the hearings of their cases.
“Allowing the prisoners food from the restaurants near the district courts is a dangerous practice as some poisonous food to them”, he observed. He said a majority of the prisoners would spend hours in the poorly facilitated judicial lock-up before their hearings. “So they request the policemen escorting them to have some refreshment at the restaurants,” he added. He said several prisoners had escaped from the police custody when they were allowed to have their mean in a similar fashion. He said that on 6 December 2007, Rashid Rauf, a British national of Pakistani origin, escaped from the custody of Islamabad police. Rauf was facing a trial for his alleged involvement in the plot to blow up trans-Atlantic jetliners. He fled on the day he was brought to a court from Adiala Jail.
Similarly a notorious car-lifter Malik Abdul Saeed who used to run a car jacking gang, escaped while exploiting the lax security during his hearing in a court, he added.
Likewise, he said, Javed and Hassan, who were allegedly involved in various cases of fraud, escaped from the police custody on 11 April last from the same premises. On 16 April 2010, two handcuffed prisoners, booked for armed robberies, who had come to attend the hearing of their case, managed to escape. “Javaid Akhtar and Javaid Tanoli offered some juices to two cops named Amir and Iftikhar and escaped after the policemen had fallen unconscious.
