The authorities in Punjab have conceded that a Pakistani prisoner who went missing from Amritsar’s high-security jail nearly a month back, may have “escaped”.
Jail officials had launched a massive manhunt on August 29 after 35-year-old Niyamat Ali was discovered during the mid-day roll call of prisoners. Besides the sprawling, 44-acre jail compound, sniffer dogs were requisitioned to search for the prisoner.
Prison superintendent G.S. Sidhu, who believed it was impossible for Ali to have scaled the 25-foot outer walls of the penitentiary, had even ordered his men to look in the maze of sewers under the prison. The hunt carried on for more than 10 days but there was no trace of the missing Pakistani.
Now an inquiry report submitted by a committee appointed by Amritsar deputy commissioner Kahan Singh Pannu has concluded that Niyamat Ali has “escaped”. Currently before the additional director-general police in-charge of prisons and the state chief secretary, the DC’s report has recommended stern action against negligent jail officials. Arrested in the Lopoke Sector near Amritsar in November last year, Ali was charged under provisions of the Foreigners Act and sentenced to three months in prison. He was officially “released” on February 27 this year and had since been retained in the jail as an internee awaiting repatriation.
Mr Pannu said the Amritsar jail authorities have notified the Pakistan high commission at Delhi about the jailbreak.