1,184 women, 140 babies in prisons which lack health services, SC told
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Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) president Syed Qalb-e-Hassan on Thursday submitted a report on the prisoners before the Supreme Court, which says that 1,184 women and 1,557 people older than 60 years of age are currently jailed in the country’s prisons.
According to the report, 25,456 inmates have been convicted and thus sentenced, while 48,008 are under trial.
The high number of under-trial prisoners noted in the report highlights another serious problem as it is obviously a result of slow rate of disposing of cases by judiciary.
Moreover, the report also mentioned that 140 babies were housed in the prisons along with their mothers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab.
According to the document, the prisons are currently overcrowded and the number of total prisoners is 33 percent more than their capacity.
Meanwhile, 2,100 inmates are suffering from different physical diseases along with 173 patients of tuberculosis, while another 2,400 are a victim of AIDS and hepatitis.
About the lack of medical facilities and services, it mentioned 66 vacant posts of psychologists while 594 inmates are facing psychological problems.
Moreover, 108 posts of doctors are also currently vacant. In fact, 10 percent jails of Punjab don’t even have ambulances and the province also has 66 disabled prisoners.