• Ig deleted prisons; Dig prisons and superintendent of the suspended prison
• CM Murad calls the “unacceptable” incident, laments prison authorities did not communicate with the government or law enforcement agencies to obtain assistance
• A prisoner killed, another four injured in melee combat; The authorities say that the prisoners ran after being out of the barracks after the tremors
Karachi: At least 83 of the 216 inmates, who managed to get out of the Malir district prison, have been rounded and teams have been formed to bring those who are still released, police said.
Following the Jailbreak, called “one of the greatest in Pakistan” by Law Minister Ziaul Hasan Lanjar, Sindh’s Prime Minister Murad Ali Shah, withdrew the head of the provincial prisons and suspended the deputy general inspector of prisons, as well as the superintendent of the Peniténic de Chaos-Hit.
The Jailbreak began just before midnight and continued until the early hours of Tuesday after hundreds of prisoners, scared by low intensity earthquakes, were allowed to enter the prison courtyard, said Interior Minister Ziaul Hasan Lanjar, journalists on the scene.
Police said the prisoners snatched weapons from prison staff and forced to open the main door after a shooting, evading paramilitary soldiers. At least one prisoner was shot dead and two were injured, Sindh IGP Ghulam Nabi Memon said.
The police surgeon, Dr. Sumaiya Syed, told Dawn the body of a deceased prisoner, along with four other inmates with shooting injuries and two police officers, were taken to a hospital.
IGP Memon, who visited the jail on Tuesday morning, said that, according to his evaluation and informative sessions of prison and police officers, the prison administration brought about 2,000 prisoners from his barracks for counting shortly after midnight, after low intensity tremors.
“Most prisoners were drug addicts,” he said. “The mental state of addicts is such that they tend to develop Mafia psychology. Therefore, when such an atmosphere was created within the prison, the prisoners ran by opening the door of the prison,” he explained.
The police chief said that FC staff deployed in the prison turned to aerial shots to push them back.
Subsequently, the law agents launched an operation, managing to recover 78 prisoners.
The Chief of the Sindh police said they are establishing equipment to restart the remaining escape prisoners. “One of the escaped prisoners was taken to jail for his mother,” he added.
He said that the Sindh government has decided to establish an investigation committee to determine the circumstances that led to the incident and fix responsibility for it.
Head roll
Following the incident, Sindh Cm Murad Ali Shah ordered the elimination of Nazir IG Qazi prisons and suspended the DIG Hassan Sehto prisons and the superintendent of Malir’s prison, Arshad Hussain.
When qualifying the “completely unacceptable” incident, the prime minister said he demonstrated serious negligence and inefficiency by the prison administration.
By chairing an emergency meeting at CM CM, the main minister ordered the main secretary to carry out an exhaustive investigation of the Malir prison incident by involving Commissioner Karachi Hassan Naqvi and the Karachi police chief, Javed Alam Odho.
He stressed that the prison authorities should have immediately contacted the local administration of the district and the agencies of application of the law to obtain assistance. “There seems to be a complete collapse in communication and preparation,” he observed.
“Those responsible will be responsible,” he said, while directed the Secretary of the Interior to carry out an integral security audit of all prisons throughout the province.
CM Murad was informed that most of the escaped prisoners were involved in minor crimes, and none faced atrocious charges.
The prime minister appealed to the fugitives to voluntarily surrender. “My request for them (escaped prisoners) would be to surrender, otherwise, their participation in the incident of the jail will be equivalent to terrorism or larger cases,” he added.
Superintendent account
In his report, the now suspended prison superintendent said that the prisoners stirred due to the tremors and began raising a shock and shouting from the barracks just after midnight on Tuesday.
He said that the security personnel hastened to control the situation and tried to convince the prisoners to remain calm, but many of them instigated their fellow inmates to break the doors of the barracks in Circle no IV.
The report affirmed that the hurried inmates already beat him another security personnel and rushed the main ‘marri’ (security point), as well as other circles and broke the locks of many barracks in circles No. V and No. II.
This resulted in hundreds of prisoners ran the office block, the prison hospital and the main marriage, the interview posts, the electronic court and other rooms.
The prisoners also managed to enter the main marriage, where they beat the security personnel and ran to the outer door of the prison complex around 1:30 am
Posted in Dawn, June 4, 2025
