LAHORE: The Lahore High Court on Friday sought a detailed report from the Punjab prisons department by January 20 next about the facilities provided to the transgender in all jails of the province.

The court passed these directions in a petition of Rida Qazi seeking treatment of prisoners according to jail manual and construction of new jails in the province.

A law officer sought time to reply the court queries when asked as to whether any specific numbers were assigned to any transgender cell and whether it was displayed outside each cell in the jail specified for such category.

The petitioner in his main petition filed a fresh civil miscellaneous application for implementation of the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act 2018 on the transgenders languishing in the jails.

Inspector General of Prisons in his reply said the policy regarding the transgender convicted prisoners had been given in accordance with Section 2(n) of Transgender Persons of Rights Act, 2018. It was further clarified that no transgender prisoner was confined in jail till the filing of the reply.

The petitioner’s counsel, pointed out that although there may not be any prisoner at the moment in any jail of Punjab but whenever such a vulnerable person is sent to jail, there has to be a foolproof system of his receiving and confinement in a particular cell to make sure that he is not abused in any way or dealt with in an unfair manner.

A law officer said that at the moment there were separate cells for transgender in all jails of the province.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022