Twenty four high-profile death row prisoners have been shifted from a jail in Quetta to another prison in Pakistan's restive Balochistan province, fearing a possible jail break.
The decision to shift the high-profile prisoners from District Jail Quetta to Central Jail Mach was made at a meeting held at the Home and Tribal Affairs Department of Balochistan.
Senior officers from Home and Prison departments participated in the meeting, which discussed possible attacks on prisons in the province. 24 high-profile prisoners have been shifted, Superintendent of District Jail Quetta Muhammad Asif Butt said, adding that, ""All prisoners have been sentenced to death."
He said Frontier Corps, Balochistan Constabulary, Police and Rapid Response Force personnel were deployed around the jail to avoid occurrence of any untoward incident during the shifting. The shifting of the prisoners comes after Pakistan's security agencies foiled a plan of militants to attack Kot Lakhpat Jail in Lahore where at least 50 death row terrorists including five dreaded ones are lodged.
There are a total of 97 prisoners in Balochistan who have been awarded the death sentence. A total of 14 prisoners have filed their mercy petitions before President Mamnoon Hussain.
"Within a few days' time, the fate of these prisoners would be decided," an officer of the Home Department was quoted as saying by Dawn News. The number of inmates in all 11 jails in Balochistan is more than 3,000.
Four jails -- including District Jail Quetta, Khuzdar, Gaddani and Mach -- have been declared sensitive, the daily quoted sources as saying. Security around jails has been beefed up in the aftermath of the Peshawar school carnage and the lifting of the moratorium on the death penalty by the federal government.
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