THE `successful` escape of over 200 prisoners from the District Prison and Correctional Facility in Malir proved to be quite unsettling for their families, as a large number of people gathered on the National Highway, clamouring for word of their loved ones.

Finding no satisfactory response from the jail administration, they blocked the highway in protest, which prompted jail authorities to allow women inside to get information or meet their relatives.

Inside the prison, huddled behind a rusty iron gate, prisonerspeered outofabarracksthat had witnessed an audacious jailbreak just hours earlier.

The heavy iron doorway, which would ordinarily be bolted shut from the outside, is secured with handcuffs the first tell-tale sign of the mayhemthat unfolded the night before with the severed bolt lying on the floor next to the doorway.

A trail of broken glass led through administrative offices and other areas that faced the brunt of unruly inmates.

Vandalised IT equipment could be seen inside one of the rooms, while water coolers and other paraphernalia lay scattered outside.

A meeting room for prisoners to see their families was also ransacked.Prison officials sifted through scattered paperwork and tiptoed over debris as they tried to go about their day as usual. But really, there was nothing usual about what transpired here overnight.

`I heard the firing for quite some time and then some time later prisoners made their way out running in all directions,` Bukhsh, a private security guard at a residential complex opposite the jail told Reuters.

He added that some of the prisoners entered the apartment complex before being taken away by police.

Worried sick Concern was writ large on the faces of those gathered outside the prison; many people related to escapees appeared worried over why the wanted men had not come home.

An old man sitting outside the jail`s main gate told Dawn that his son was arrested four days ago, and that he had obtained his bail from a court. However, the jail staff was not acceptingthe bailpapers,he said.

A youth said he had come to see his brother, but was told that their meeting could only be arranged on Wednesday.

A woman told Dawn her daughters had been worried sick about their father. `The prisoners did not cause the earthquake, it was an act of God,` she said.

When a prison official showed up at the gate, the wretched folk encircled the vehicle and began beseeching him to let them meet their relatives.

Aziz, a prison official deputed at the gate, told Dawn that after they blocked the National Highway, prisoners` relatives mostly women and children had been allowed inside toinquire after their loved ones.

As we were speaking, a couple of women approached him to ask about their relatives. He told them that if their relatives returned home, they should bring them back to prison.

His advice echoed that of Sindh CM Murad Ali Shah, who had warned the fugitives to turn themselves in, lest they be slapped with charges more serious than their initial crimes.

Most of the escapees were addicts, and won`t be able to survive on their own for too long, Aziz said.