Peshawar    -   Terming Prison reforms in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as satisfactory, Federal Ombudsman Ejaz Ahmed Qureshi stressed continued efforts to bring further improvement and to increase the capacity of prisons.

While jointly chairing a review meeting on Prisons reforms held on Thursday with Chief Secretary Shahzad Bangash, Federal Ombudsman said progress on the implementation status of reforms needs to be reviewed regularly.

Inspector General of Police Muazzam Jah Ansari, Home Department representative, DG Prosecution, IG Prison and other relevant officials attended the meeting.

Addressing the forum Chief Secretary Shahzad Bangash said meaningful prison reforms are among the top priorities of the provincial government. To make prisoners useful citizens of the society, the Chief Secretary stated that they were imparted free education and vocational training.

IG Jail Saadat Hassan briefed the forum on prison reforms, saying that prison capacity was increased by 4,672 inmates with the operationalization of jails in different districts, which has greatly reduced overcrowding. He said that provincial and district oversight committees had been constituted to improve the overall condition of prisons, adding that the said committees made 16 and 96 visits to different jails respectively.

He further informed that 3,522 prisoners were imparted formal education, and 1,743 religious education while 825 inmates were given vocational training. Similarly, 1,809 prisoners received free legal aid.

IG Jail said that juveniles and women are segregated from other prisoners in separate blocks. In addition, separate rooms have been established in 7 jails for transgender. He informed the meeting that the Prison Management Information System was installed in 14 jails and efforts were underway to expand the system to other jails as well.