By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Fourteen under-trial prisoners escaped from a police van on Monday after overpowering their guards while being transported between jails near Rawalpindi, authorities said, triggering a manhunt across the garrison city and the federal capital.
The prisoners broke free in the Sihala area of Rawalpindi as they were being moved from Kahuta to Adiala jail, according to a statement from a Rawalpindi police spokesperson. Four of the escapees were recaptured during the operation that followed, while police said search teams were continuing efforts to track down the remaining ten.
Rawalpindi’s Capital City Police Officer, identified in the statement as Hamdani, took notice of the incident after reports emerged of prisoners fleeing the van and ordered senior officers to reach the scene immediately, file a report and begin an operation to recover the fugitives.
“The escaped individuals are accused in cases currently under trial,” the spokesperson said, without specifying the nature of the charges against them.
An initial investigation suggested the breakout followed a violent altercation among the prisoners inside the van, the statement said, though authorities did not elaborate on what triggered the clash or how it allowed the prisoners to subdue the guards escorting them.
The incident falls within the jurisdiction of Sihala police station, which lies in Islamabad district, and police said coordination was under way between Rawalpindi and Islamabad authorities given the cross-jurisdictional nature of the escape.
“The escaped individuals will be arrested and dealt with in accordance with the law,” the spokesperson said, adding that a formal inquiry into the circumstances of the escape had been launched under the supervision of senior officers and that departmental action would be taken against anyone found responsible for the lapse.
The escape is the latest in a string of security failures involving prisoner transport and custody arrangements. Earlier this month, two police officials and two other individuals were booked after an under-trial prisoner escaped from Benazir Bhutto Hospital in Rawalpindi.
Last year, more than 200 inmates broke out of District Prison Malir in Karachi in what provincial Law Minister Ziaul Hasan Lanjar described at the time as one of the largest jailbreaks in Pakistan’s history. The episode prompted Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah to remove the province’s prisons chief and suspend the deputy inspector general of prisons along with the penitentiary’s superintendent.
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