ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: Currently 73,661 prisoners are in jails across the Country and out of whom 44,853 are under trial prisoners which constitutes about 60 percent of prisoners’ population, the National Assembly was told on Monday.
In a written reply submitted in the House by the Minister for Human Rights Dr Shireen Mazari while responding to a question by Pakistan People’s Party’s (PPP) lawmaker Abdul Qadir Patel, it was told that a total of 45,324 prisoners are incarcerated in Punjab jails, out of whom, 25,054 are under trial in various courts.
Further providing a province wise breakdown of prisoners’ data, the minister told that 7,067 prisoners out of a total of 9,900 are under-trial prisoners in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and 11,488 prisoners out of 16,315 are in Sindh while 1,244 prisoners out of 2,122 are facing trial in Balochistan.
The minister further apprised the House that the Ministry of Human Rights took notice of a large number of persons imprisoned in jails for years without a final decision of the court of law through conducting visits of different prisons to monitor inmates’ human rights and highlight such issues with recommendations to the concerned authorities.
Recently, she further told, that on the direction of the Islamabad High Court (IHC), a Commission on Prisons Reforms headed by the Federal Minister for Human Rights prepared a fact-finding report regarding the situation of jails across Pakistan. The report has been shared with the Provincial Chief Secretaries and the Ministry of Interior for the implementation of recommendations made by the Commission in its report.
