Following the mass jailbreak from Karachi’s District Malir Jail, authorities recaptured three more escapees late Tuesday night, bringing the total number of arrested inmates to 94 out of the 216 escaped prisoners.
However, 122 prisoners still remain at large, and a search operation is underway to apprehend them, officials confirmed.
According to jail authorities, a case pertaining to the jailbreak has been registered at Shah Latif Town Police Station, where an FIR was filed by the prison’s Deputy Superintendent Zulfiqar Ali Pirzada under different sections of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) and the Anti-Terrorism Act. The charges listed include attempted murder, dacoity, police encounter and terrorism, among others.
The authorities have appealed to the public for assistance in locating the remaining fugitives and have ramped up coordination between law enforcement agencies to ensure their swift capture. Raids are being carried out in different parts of the city with surveillance increased at the known residences of the escaped prisoners.
Furthermore, officials have announced that inmmates who return voluntarily to the jail will be granted leniency.
Amidst the ongoing Malir Jail escape case, one more prisoner has voluntarily turned himself in.
Asif, who was serving a sentence under Section 380 (theft), surrendered himself and upon recalling the jailbreak, he said the incident began the moment tremors from the earthquake were felt. “As soon as the earthquake struck, prisoners started coming out of their barracks,” he said. “There was no one there to stop us.”
He described how all the inmates exited through the main gate and made their way to the road outside.
Expressing remorse, Asif said, “I want to complete my sentence”. He added that he had already spent 10 months in jail and his case is still ongoing.
Earlier, a woman took her son and his friend back to the jail, one of whom was a drug addict and had reached home at 3.30am on the night of the jail break.The woman said she gave them meal before taking them back to the jail. She was hopeful that her son would recover from drug addiction in the jail.
Meanwhile, in an emergency meeting held at the Chief Minister’s House, Sindh CM Murad Ali Shah ordered a thorough investigation into the Malir Jail escape incident. He assigned Chief Secretary Asif Hyder Shah to oversee the probe by involving Karachi Commissioner Hassan Naqvi and Karachi Police Chief Javed Alam Odho.
