Discussing the private resolution moved by his party's minority MPA Mangla Sharma that prisoners should be released on a semi-parole to attend the funerals, marriages and patients of blood-relation such as parents, siblings and children, he further lamented that even youngsters are jailed for 25 years.
"Has anyone ever thought and felt how the family members maintain themselves while their men are imprisoned," he asked. His voice dimmed and eyes filled with tears when he narrated the conditions of family members of prisoners. He said some 5000 people are in the jail while their women sell themselves and their children beg.
He said that the system emphasised more on harsh punishments instead of reforming the criminals. "The denial of bail is against the basic rights of citizens," he said, adding that the system lacks instrument to ameliorate and reform them.
Sindh Agriculture Minister, Ismail Rahu called the rotten justice system as one of the society's critical problems. He said standards of justice and prosecution have to be improved to reduce crimes. He assured the house that the government would step up efforts to correct the colonial-era legal system.
Murad Ali Shah of PPP said that all the prisoners in the country's different jails are not criminals. He said prisoners implicated in the fake cases and handed long-term sentences eventually find themselves at loss with no future. He said injustice instils revenge against the society in them.
Opposition leader Firdous Shamim Naqvi of PTI asked the government to amend the laws and turn jails into a correction (rehabilitation) centres so that the criminals could be able at the end of their sentence term to come out as a good citizen. He regretted that the 1824 laws are still enforced in the country.
Sindh Prisons Minister Syed Nasir Hussain Shah assured the house that the government had approved a draft bill on jail reforms and improvement of living conditions of inmates, which would soon be sent to the assembly's select committee. Once the committee approves, the government would table the bill in the house. He said he would insert all the recommendations of legislators in the proposed draft to make the conditions at prisons better. He said "jails will be correction centres."
Earlier, Mangla Sharma spoke on her resolution suggesting a two-day parole should be granted for prisoners for attending funeral, marriages or meet patients of blood relation. The assembly also adopted a condemnation resolution against PTI's legislators, including Khurrum Sher Zaman Khan and Haleem Adil Shaikh for inappropriate comments in the house while they along other opposition members were protesting.