Team News Riveting
Islamabad, August 7
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has moved to the Islamabad High Court seeking A-Class jail facilities for former Prime Minister and party founder Imran Khan.
On Saturday, an Islamabad trial court had pronounced Imran guilty of “corrupt practices” in a case pertaining to concealing details of state gifts and sentenced him to three years in prison. Soon after the verdict, he was arrested by the Punjab police from his Zaman Park residence in Lahore.
Former prime minister Imran Khan’s lawyer, Naeem Haider Panjotha, claimed on Monday that the PTI chief — who is currently incarcerated in Attock Jail in a graft case — was being kept in “distressing conditions” and provided “C-Class jail facilities”. Even his life is under threat, he added.
Earlier in the day, Panjotha reached the IHC where he filed a petition, which urged the court to declare Imran’s detention in Attock Jail “illegal” and for the ex-premier to be shifted to Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi. The petition requested for “better class/A-Class” jail facilities to be provided to the PTI chief under Rule 243 (classifying authority) of the Pakistan Prison Rules (PPR) read with Rule 248 (classification of under-trial prisoners) of the same.
The plea said that the former premier had been “confined in a 9×11 feet cell with an annexed dirty bathroom”. It further said that the room was a “dirty cell which has traditionally been reserved for terrorists”.
According to the PPR, convicted prisoners are classified into superior class, ordinary class, and political class. Superior class includes A and B-Class prisoners. Ordinary class comprises prisoners other than superior class.
There are only two classes of under-trial prisoners; better class and ordinary class. Better class includes those under-trial prisoners who by social status, education or habit of life have been accustomed to a superior mode of living and will correspond to A and B-Class of convicted prisoners. Ordinary class will include all others and will correspond to C-Class.
Superior class prisoners are entitled to books and newspapers, a 21-inch television, a table and a chair, a mattress, personal bedding and clothing and food. The prisoners have to pay for all this themselves. The government is only obligated to provide them security in a high-security ward where they will be kept away from other prisoners.
Rooms are supplied with a cot, one chair, one teapot, one lantern if there is no electric light, and necessary washing and sanitary appliances. A-Class prisoners may supplement the furniture by other articles within reasonable limit at their own cost, at the discretion of the superintendent.
