Prisons Minister Chaudhry Abdul Waheed has told the Punjab Assembly (PA) that Family Rooms had been completed in three jails of Lahore, Faisalabad, and Multan for facilitating the prisoners and the Home Department had sent the summary to chief minister for approval. The minister stated this during PA’s question hour while responding to legislators’ queries.
The minister informed the House that any prisoner could avail the facility of family room to meet his family members after attestation of the Form-B of the NADRA with the copy of his/her national identity card from the district coordination officer. He confirmed that they had planned to avoid any misuse of these rooms. He said that around 48,127 prisoners were held in jails across the province and a new prison in the name of Manawa Jail Complex with capacity of 4,000 prisoners is being constructed. He added that the government was considering a project to construct a women prison in Rawalpindi. He said that around 1,100 posts were vacant in the jail department which would be fulfilled soon.
Answering a query, the minister informed the house that they had taken measures to control crimes inside the jails and seized more than 5,000 mobile phones from the prisoners and had also registered FIRs against not only the prisoners cum mobile-holders but the duty officials. The 1124 Complaint Service had also been started in jails along with fixing complaint boxes at the visitors’ rooms in the premises of jails, he added.
About the health facilities in prisons, the minister informed that all basic medical facilities were provided to the prisoners as well as operation theaters have also been completed in some jail-hospitals with the support of non-governmental organisations to deal with an emergency.