PESHAWAR: The provincial government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has introduced Prison Management Information System (PMIS) in 14 prisons of the province, and efforts to extend it to other prisons were in progress.
This was told during a review meeting on Prisons’ Reforms held here on under the joint chairmanship of the Federal Ombudsman, Ejaz Ahmad Qureshi and Chief Secretary KP Dr Shehzad Bangash.
Besides, the Inspector General of Police KP, Muazzam Jah Ansari, the higher authorities of the Home & Tribal Affairs Department, Director General (DG) Prosecution, IG Prisons and other concerned departments attended the meeting.
IG Prisons Saadat Hassan gave detailed briefing on prisons’ reforms and said that due to construction and expansion work, the capacity of prisons has been increased for 4672 more inmates.
The provincial government under its Jail Reforms Initiative has imparted conventional education to 3522 prisons while 1743 others have been given religious education.
Similarly, 825 prisoners have been imparted technical skills and 1809 were given free legal assistance. Minors and women have been kept separate from other prisoners while 7 rooms have been allocated for transgender prisoners.
He told the meeting that supervisory committee constituted for Jail Reforms have held five meetings while provincial and district supervisory committees had paid 16 and 96 visits to various prisons respectively.
Speaking on the occasion, Federal Ombudsman Ejaz Ahmad Qureshi termed the steps of the provincial government regarding jail reforms as satisfactory and stressed need for consecutive efforts to bring further improvement in prisons and increase in their capacities.
Addressing the meeting, Chief Secretary Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Dr Shehzad Bangash said that jail reforms are included in the priorities of the provincial government. He said that free education and technical skills are being taught to prisoners to turn them into useful members of the society. He said that steps are also being taken for the diagnosing of various transferable diseases and welfare of prisoners.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022