This is not at all a healthy picture of prison-management in Bangladesh. There are manifold irregularities prevailing in this management, some of which come to the media but the bigger part remains in the dark. But even those become public they don’t penetrate through the deaf ear of concerned authorities. It will be appropriate to say that a kind of confined kingdoms has developed inside every prison with their own rules not at per with legal obligations.
Over-crowded prisons have made the situation worse. So, it is futile to search for humane condition inside the prisons. For partial relief cash money is needed at every stage. In this situation it is difficult to survive there even for inmates with normal mental health. If any inmate become sick, his condition becomes beyond comprehension. No need to say anything about the prisoners suffering from mental illness. It is a genuine issue that if our legal system becomes even a little bit speedy and conscious, prison will get rid of over-crowded inmates at least partially and the mentally sick in particular.
We must say, the apex court may come with relief to such patients asking the jail authorities to identify them and arrange their screening case by case. It goes without saying that mentally sick prisoners have no feeling of being punished if convicted and for those going without completion of trial, they need to be treated differently in their situation.
Our only hope is when others have failed then the judiciary will at least be bold enough in saving those lives for dignified living. It has become a cruel fashion to somehow keep persons in jail and forget they are human beings.
