Prison for female offenders to open in Sept

Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Moudud Ahmed told this to reporters after the meeting of an inter-ministerial committee for jail reforms yesterday.

"We've completed amendments to 978 out of 1388 jail codes and we will need three more months to complete the whole task," the minister said.

Meeting sources said the government has set up a legal aid centre at Dhaka District Bar office and appointed three lawyers to provide legal assistance to people.

"We've initially set up the office in Dhaka and will eventually appoint legal aid committee in divisional districts and to the rest of the districts," Moudud said.

Yesterday's meeting asked the Bangladesh missions abroad to play an active role providing legal aid to Bangladeshi citizens staying imprisoned in other countries and arrange their release and return home.

According to Moudud, about 4,000 Bangladeshis are currently captive in different countries especially in Saudi Arabia, India, Pakistan and United Arab Emirates. Of them, 2,600 are in Saudi Arabian jails alone.

Meeting sources said the prison for women in Kashimpur will be completed in three to four months while one prison for males has already been completed.

While discussing the shifting of Dhaka Central Jail from Chawkbazar to Keraniganj, the meeting was told land requisition has already been done and preparation of design is underway.

"I hope the Planning Commission will submit the PP (project proposal) in a week," said Moudud. There are 71,200 people in different jails in the country and 23,000 are convicts.

The meeting also discussed the development of bringing the prisons under a computer network and the prisons and courts under video link.

Ministers for health, housing and public works, post and telecommunications, social welfare, state minister for home affairs and secretaries of the ministries concerned also participated in the meeting.