Population in 38 jails of the province is also above the sanctioned space: Report
JAVED KHAN
PESHAWAR
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s overcrowded prisons confined more than 14000 inmates at the end of 2022, with a majority of them being those under-trials for crimes they had allegedly committed.
According to Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP)’s flagship annual report “State of Human Rights in 2022”, the number of inmates convicted in the jails of KP stood at 2,513 while 11,034 were undertrials.
“Data from KP Prisons Department indicates that, as against a sanctioned capacity of 13,106 inmates, the province’s 38 jails held 14,079 prisoners, implying overcrowding by 7 percent. Under-trial prisoners far outnumbered convicted prisoners at a ratio of 4.4 to 1,” the report noted.
Of the total 14,079 inmates, 13,394 were male, 171 were female, 514 were juvenile, 33 were children, 2,513 were convicted, 11,034 were under-trials and 52 persons were languishing in the jails on death row, according to the report. In KP there are six central, eight district, and 24 sub-jails.
A senior official in the Home and Tribal Affairs Department told this scribe on the condition of anonymity that many poor people are detained in the prisons of the province for alleged involvement in billable offences primarily because they were unable to furnish surety or owing to slow courts trials.
Many people end up spending long time in jail merely because they are poor, he lamented and said that courts, police and lawyers in many ways are the major driving forces behind the overpopulated under-trial prisoners issue.
“In fact the courts are facing a massive backlog and burden of cases in the province whereas the challenge to address the issue of under-trial prisoners requires some bold and creative steps for some time to come, “ he noted.
Senior lawyer Peshawar High Court (PHC) Tariq Afghan said that it is imperative for our police in criminal investigation to buckle up and use modern technology to keep up with the current state of affairs.
The police department needs to incorporate technological aspects in its system of investigation, adding that the under-trial prisoners constitute a significant majority of the KP’s prisons population due to certain flaws in the justice system, lawyers and police.
While commenting on the long standing issue, Mr Afghan maintained that the judiciary, lawyer’s fraternity, police and prosecution department should play their due role in culminating the miseries of under-trial people of the province.
While KP’s justice processes have been infamous for the slow dispensation of cases, the lackluster performance of the departments concerned further decelerated judicial processes for those detained in prisons while awaiting trials, he added.
