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'Govt committed

to improve jail

conditions'

KARACHI: The government is committed to improve the conditions of jails, especially the special prisons for women and youth offenders.

This was stated by Sindh Law and Parliamentary Affairs and Social Welfare Minister Ms Shahida Jamil, in an interview with APP during a visit to the Bureau office of APP on Saturday.

Earlier, the law minister, along with a committee, visited the special prison for women and youth offenders industrial school "Dural Islah" at the Karachi Central Prison.

The committee was formed by the Sindh governor on the directive of Chief Executive General Pervaiz Musharraf, who had desired improvement in the conditions of jails and accord of top priority to women's prisons.

The committee consists of Barrister Shahida Jamil, Irrigation Minister A G N Abbasi, Home and Law secretaries and wife of Sindh governor, Begum Sajida Daudpota.

Shahida Jamil said that she was pleased to see the cleanliness and plantation at the special women's prison and "Darul Islah," where the youth inmates had also made mural paintings.

She stated that the set up there was organised and the jail staff also appeared motivated.

However, she pointed out there were 173 inmates and 29 children up to eight years of age at the women's prison against a capacity of 109.

She said a proposal was under consideration for shifting the children to SOS village. But the mothers are reluctant as they were suspicious about the move, she added.

The minister said counselling would be arranged for these mothers and a process would be followed to win over their confidence.

The minister said the government was thinking about setting up courts in jails to try cases within. She said this would enable speedy trials and help provision of prompt justice. Such a move will also help bring down the population of jails.

Shahida said the problem pertaining to payment of bail money for the inmates of jails involved in light offences would also be addressed.

She said there were complaints that laws such as Zina and Hudood ordinance were being misused by the police and others.

The minister said that these complaints would be looked into and the law would be improved as the idea of the law was to provide justice and not otherwise.

She said amendments would be suggested in these laws and they would be referred to the Federal Law Ministry for undertaking necessary procedure.

Shahida said that random checks of jails would also be carried out frequently as part of efforts to bring about required improvements.

When questioned about the enforcement of "Municipal Emergency Bill" and "Parks and Trees Act" as passed by the Sindh Assembly sometime back, the minister said she was not aware of the same. However, she said she would try to find out as to where the two pieces of legislation were lying.ÑAPP