MULTAN: The Punjab Home Department has made jails like ‘death cells’ for the lawyers who were arrested during protests against the emergency and the Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO).
It was narrated by the people who visited the lawyers in various jails in far-flung areas. They said the jail authorities were denying medical treatment to the detainees. They accused the authorities of meting out ‘inhuman treatment’ to them.
Munazza Hashmi said Multan Bar Association President Malik Akram Bhatti was suffering from Hepatitis B and C and had been shifted to the Jehlum jail without medical treatment. She said his condition was deteriorating and he needed immediate hospitalisation.
“Consultants have suggested him (Bhatti) fruits and milk but the jail authorities are not providing him these items. The size of his liver is increasing rapidly due to unavailability of medical treatment,” she said.
She said Bhatti had an exchange of hot words with the jail authorities for not providing treatment to a Rawalpindi-based lawyer who was suffering from high blood pressure. She said the home department had shifted Bhatti to the Jehlum jail despite a medical report. “Senior lawyer Rashid Rahman is a heart patient and the jail authorities are not providing him medicines,” she added.
Sources in the health department revealed that the Punjab home secretary had directed DCO Multan Abdul Sattar Sheikh to conduct a medical examination of Bhatti, which endorsed that he was a chronic patient of Hepatitis B and C. “The lawyer is very weak and needs immediate hospitalisation,” confirmed a member of the medical board.
Lawyers’ Action Committee member Syed Irfan Haider Shamsi said police had fraudulently arrested Bhatti when he with seven other lawyers had gone to hold talks with the authorities on the request of TPO Sher Shah Town Hasan Khan. He said the police registered cases against him and other lawyers under the ATA later. He said Bhatti and two other lawyers were re-arrested at the gate of the Multan jail and sent to the Jehlum jail for a month under 3-MPO.
A spokesman for the HRCP condemned the inhuman treatment of the prisoners. He said torture on detained rights groups activists, lawyers and the journalists and not letting their relatives to meet them depicted a gloomy picture of the worst condition in jails. He said delays in the hearing of cases were aggravating the prisoners’ plight.
Source: The News
Date:11/13/2007
