Risky Khulna dist jail packed with inmates

17 September 2009, 17:00 PM

Quazi Amanullah, Khulna

Prisoners and staff in Khulna Distrct Jail have to stay and work amid risk as the apparently impressive building was declared unfit for use 10 years ago.Photo: STAR

Declared unfit for use a decade ago, the two-storey dilapidated building of Khulna District Jail is still playing host to inmates, three times more than its usual capacity. Amid fear of building collapse and acute accommodation problem, prisoners are passing their days in a subhuman condition. As cracks developed in a number of parts of the jail building and at places of the boundary wall, jail authorities now feel a constant security threat. Constructed in 1912 on 5.33 acres of land on the bank of Bhairab River, the Khulna district jail building now lodges 1,800 prisoners against its capacity for 544 inmates, said the jail officials. Back in 1999, the Public Works Department (PWD) hung a red alert notice declaring the dilapidated building 'highly risky' for living. The prisoners as well as officials and employees of the jail feel insecure to work and stay in the 97-year-old building, said Jail Superintendent Md Alam Khan. Shortage of manpower also hampers maintenance and official works of the jail that is overcrowded with prisoners, he said. Of the 260 sanctioned posts of officials and employees in Khulna District Jail, 67 are now lying vacant. Following appeals on several occasions during the last few years, a proposal was sent to the Ministry of Planning on July 20 last year for allocation of fund to construct a new building for the jail at Mathurabad in Dumuria upazila under Khulna district. Jail Super Alam Khan, however, told The Daily Star that he has no idea when the fund would be made available and construction for a new jail building would start.