Overcrowded jails are making news head lines as over 75,000 prisoners have been locked up in the country’s 68 jails where they have the capacity to hold 34,167 inmates. Another report said Dhaka Central Jail is holding inmates more than three times of its capacity and to make things worse, detained opposition leaders and activists are adding to the queue each day following a blanket arrests policy of the government to crash the opposition movement.
Reports said the prisons had 68,595 inmates until last December but the figure shot up on daily basis since early January when the 20-party opposition started blockade and hartals to force the government to concede to their demands for fresh election. News report said police are arresting people indiscriminately. A recent story said a schoolteacher was nabbed from the examination hall of his school at Mohakhali on suspicion that he was associated with the opposition politics. Police picked him up defying protest of his colleagues and denied bail on several occasions. Finally he was able to get bail when he engaged a lawyer of the ruling party on advice from some quarters. Police are also reportedly running ‘arrest business’ under the cover of chasing the opposition leaders and workers and the jails are getting overcrowded every day in such volatile situation.
Reports said some jails, particularly in Dhaka and major cities have no more places to accommodate new inmates. People are living in corridors and even in make shift tents and sleep in shifts in absence of enough space. They have to make long queue for toilets where the hygienic condition is polluting the nearby environment. Food supply to inmates is very poor making human life miserable for people for hardly any fault or for being a member of opposition parties now challenging the government. The detention of thousands of opposition political party members is the biggest problem for jails now as overcrowding is causing skin and liver diseases while drug addicts are making lives of healthy people miserable. And on top of it bribing jail officials has become a common norm to enjoy some relief in the otherwise congested jail life.
A large number of prisoners are kept confined not because they are dangerous criminals needed to be kept inside for protecting the people. It is known to the authorities also that these people are in jail for political reasons to suit the convenience of the government.
Reports said the prisons had 68,595 inmates until last December but the figure shot up on daily basis since early January when the 20-party opposition started blockade and hartals to force the government to concede to their demands for fresh election. News report said police are arresting people indiscriminately. A recent story said a schoolteacher was nabbed from the examination hall of his school at Mohakhali on suspicion that he was associated with the opposition politics. Police picked him up defying protest of his colleagues and denied bail on several occasions. Finally he was able to get bail when he engaged a lawyer of the ruling party on advice from some quarters. Police are also reportedly running ‘arrest business’ under the cover of chasing the opposition leaders and workers and the jails are getting overcrowded every day in such volatile situation.
Reports said some jails, particularly in Dhaka and major cities have no more places to accommodate new inmates. People are living in corridors and even in make shift tents and sleep in shifts in absence of enough space. They have to make long queue for toilets where the hygienic condition is polluting the nearby environment. Food supply to inmates is very poor making human life miserable for people for hardly any fault or for being a member of opposition parties now challenging the government. The detention of thousands of opposition political party members is the biggest problem for jails now as overcrowding is causing skin and liver diseases while drug addicts are making lives of healthy people miserable. And on top of it bribing jail officials has become a common norm to enjoy some relief in the otherwise congested jail life.
A large number of prisoners are kept confined not because they are dangerous criminals needed to be kept inside for protecting the people. It is known to the authorities also that these people are in jail for political reasons to suit the convenience of the government.
