Karachi prison raid uncovers comfy, homely inmate life style
Karachi Central Prison, housing over 6,000 prisoners, was the scene of two sensational events last week, the daredevil flight of two hard-core LEJ militants and the raid by Law Enforcing Agencies that netted a rich haul of merchandise not exactly on the jail manual list, meant for the inmate’s good life. The first incident was harrowing enough, one of the high value escapees had murdered 57 people, the other seven. In this matter there were precedents, apparently not rectified, the assisted prison jailbreaks of April 2012 in Bannu and July 2013 in Dera Ismail Khan that helped hundreds of militants to flee. But the scale of the hoard of illicit items found by the raiding party in the second episode, also staggers the imagination, putting serious question marks on the penitentiary system countrywide, in the so-called houses of reformation and correction. A surprise swoop on Lahore’s Central Jail for instance, might reveal even more dirty secrets about luxury living while being a guest of the government.
The swag in the Karachi bust is mind-boggling for a strictly controlled and monitored environment: mobile phones, complemented by a sophisticated prison anti-jammer network, deep freezers, hundreds of televisions and LCDs, bracket fans, heaters, DVD players, water dispensers, assorted cigarettes, scissors and knives, memory cards, remote control devices, five packets of heroin and Rs.3.552 million in cash to plan and supervise criminal activities. There were ten unauthorized kitchens no doubt to serve up Michelin- starred food for special guests washed down with an ‘objectionable material’.
The Counter-Terrorism Department can toil twenty six hours a day, but all their Herculean labours will go waste if the scandalous and chaotic conditions prevailing in overcrowded, obsolete, prisons are not immediately addressed. Modernisation is the key. Police morale, discipline and esprit d’ corps has also plummeted due to Sindh government insistence on removing A D Khawaja as IG Sindh, denied by the SHC. Street crime has risen alarmingly and two Sindh AIGs accused of Rs.50 million embezzlement, recently fled after Sindh High Court cancelled their interim bail!
