Dejected jailers, prisoners make their own sanitisers, face masks after no response from KP govt

One after the other, worrisome instances have been coming up all over the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, raising questions and eyebrows about how effective really is the leadership there and if proper facilities are even being provided to the people and medics or not.

In a startling finding, Geo News has discovered that jail administration staff and inmates at prisons in KP have started to make their own sanitisers and face masks after facing disappointment from the lack of response or facilitation from the provincial government.

None of the basic healthcare items were available in the market and, therefore, the ones made inside the jails were being distributed among all the inmates.

So far, the determined jail wardens and prisoners all over the province have collaboratively made 6,000 face masks and 100 litres of sanitiser. Of the total, 1,000 face masks and 12 litres of sanitiser were produced in Central Jail Peshawar.

Furthermore, the document states that requests have been sent to the KP Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) for provision of basic healthcare items for the prisoners.

Speaking to Geo News, the inspector-general of prisons for KP, Masud-ur- Rahman, said they had asked the provincial government to provide masks, sanitisers, thermal scanners, and protective gear.

"We demand the equipment and items be immediately provided in order to ensure that our jails remain safe and secure," Rahman said. "At the moment, we are preparing face masks and hand sanitisers ourselves and for now, the situation is under control.

"No prisoner has tested positive for COVID-19," the official said.

On the other hand, KP PDMA Director-General Pervez Khan also spoke to Geo News, saying sanitisers had been prepared with the help of civil defense volunteers and would soon be handed over to the prisons department.

"We are purchasing surgical masks and we will give them to the jail officials too," Khan added.