An open-air gym is established at the Peshawar prison while a badminton hall was built inside the Mardan jail to provide facilities to the inmates
our correspondent
PESHAWAR
Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Mahmood Khan on Wednesday directed authorities to timely prepare a legal frame. Chairing a meeting of the provincial prison department, the chief minister was briefed over the performance of the prison authorities and reforms to be introduced.
He was briefed that a new legal framework is being devised to implement jail reforms agenda in the department. “We have computerized the records of 14 prisons in the province while the process for remaining is underway,” the CM was briefed. An open-air gym is established at the Peshawar prison while a badminton hall was built inside the Mardan jail to provide facilities to the inmates, the meeting was briefed.
The chief minister while expressing satisfaction over the performance of the prison department directed the authorities to expedite central prison projects in Malakand and Kohat Divisions.
Mahmood Khan said that timeline for completion of jail projects should be achieved while funds needed for installation of CCTV cameras at the prisons should also be provided on an early basis.
It is pertinent to mention here that on April 05, the Ministry of Human Rights furnished a report to the Supreme Court on the measures it has been taking to contain the spread of the coronavirus among inmates, painting a grim picture of conditions in the country’s overpopulated prisons.
The report stated prisons across Punjab, Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are packed beyond capacity.
In light of rising cases of the contagion in the country, the ministry said, inmates, aged above 50, have been shifted to separate barracks to protect them from contracting the contagion given their vulnerability to the deadly disease.
