PESHAWAR: An inquiry committee in its finding report has observed that the under construction district jail in Hangu could not be used for keeping prisoners due to poor quality of work and use of substandard construction material.

The inquiry was initiated in 2011 on the orders of the provincial government.

The four-member committee comprising senior officers of the prison department in its findings said: `This building even can`tbe used for keeping prisoners involve in petty nature criminal cases, then keeping dangerous/hardened criminals in such a building will be equal to committing suicide.

The report also expressed reservations over the master plan of the project being executed by works and services department.

The four-page inquiry report was tabled in the question-answer session of the provincial assembly.

The Provincial Development Working Party had approved construction of district jail in Hangu in 2009 and an amount of Rs161.867 million was sanctioned.

It was decided that the provincial government and Fata Civil Secretariat would construct the building on 50/50 cost sharing basis as convicted and undertrial prisoners from tribal agencies would also be kept in the district jail. Hangu is adjacent to Kurram, Orakzai and North Waziristan agen-cies and prisoners from these agencies would be kept in the district jail.

The report said the project was divided into two phases and work order for phase-1 was issued to four different construction companies and 60 per cent construction work has been completed in phase-1. The jail building is constructed over 200-kanal land.

The committee began investigation into the project and it was observed that the entire work so far done was of very poor quality, substandard and very weak by using low quality, un-burnt bricks, earth mixed sand and unspecified iron. The under construction building had not been provided water as required as a result weak structure has been completed.

It said the condemned prisoner cells were lying in more dangerous part of the jail as the distance from parameter wall had been given by the consultant was only 10 feetfrom parameter wall and it needed replacement. The height of the parameter wall has been kept 16 feet, which was not sufficient.

The document said ventilators, windows and doors installed in cells and barracks were found not only of poor quality and substandard iron but also found them defective as the distance between two rods was greater than the required specification because it could be easily crossed by thin and low weight prisoners.

The office of the chief head warden had not been provided in the master plan while washing place was insecure.

It observed that construction process had not been properly and regularly been inspected by the communication and works department, which is the executing agency.

The committee recommended that chief minister inspection team probe the project because huge amount of public money was involved.