The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Wednesday summoned comments from the Sindh home secretary and Sindh prisons' chief Nusrat Hussain Manghan on a petition filed against transfer of under-trial prisoner Muhammad Ajmal, alias Ajmal Pahari, from the Central Prison, Karachi, to the Sukkur jail.
Hardened criminal Ajmal was booked for his involvement in a number of criminal cases, including an armed attack on the convoy of CID SP Mohammad Aslam Khan in Gizri in January 2006 that left two police officials dead. Ajmal's wife Fauzia Hussain had approached the court pleading it to order the transfer of her husband back to the Central Prison Karachi.
In response to the court notice, the Karachi jail superintendent submitted that the criminal cases against Ajmal were also transferred from courts in Karachi to the respective courts in Sukkur for adjudication. He said Karachi jail housed around 5,200 inmates, with most of them being high-profile, habitual, hardened and professional criminals.
Potential threats were received through various agencies regarding possible attack on the jail, he said, adding that in view of such threats and to disperse the high-profile inmates, the Sindh government placed the matter regarding the transfer of prisoners before the SHC chief justice, who passed orders for their transfer from the central prison to the other prisons in other parts of the province along with their cases, which shall be heard in their respective courts.