Around 700 prisoners still at large, says Bangladesh's top prison official

Dhaka, Aug 26 (PTI) Around 700 prisoners, including scores of death row convicts and Islamist militants, who escaped from jails during the July uprising last year, are still at large, Bangladesh's top prison official said on Tuesday.

Inspector General of Prisons Brigadier-General Syed Motaher Hossain said 2,700 inmates fled the prisons through jail breaks during last year's protest in July. He added that 700 prisoners were still on the run.

"Of the fugitives, nine are (Islamist) militants and 69 others are death row and life sentence-awarded convicts," he was quoted as saying by the state-run BSS news agency.

His comments came seven months after Home Affairs Adviser Lt Gen (retd.) Jahangir Alam Chowdhury said that around 700 prisoners are outside the jails.

Jail officials earlier said many of the ordinary fugitive inmates returned voluntarily as they had nearly exhausted their prison terms and preferred not to be charged as jail breakers, extending their prison term.

Hossain told reporters that the interim government has decided to dub ‘prisons’ as ‘correction centres’, renaming ‘Department of Prisons’ as ‘Correction Services Bangladesh’.

He said that the renaming was part of reforms in the existing prison system under a proposed law that also suggested different provisions to modernise the prison rules and revamp the security management, installing AI-based CCTV cameras and introducing body-cams “to make sure foolproof security in and around jails across the country”. PTI AR ZH ZH ZH