HERAT CITY (SW) – The Herat provincial council on Sunday called for probe into the killing of inmates in the central prison here earlier this week.
Kamran Alizay, chairman of the provincial council, told a press conference in this connection that the police force used excessive force resulting in casualties among the prisoners. He added that the decision to collect cell phones from the inmates was wrongly implemented by the police force that collected and damaged all personal belongings of the prisoners sparking the unrest.
He went on to claim that the inmates here lost their lives due to teargas shells fired by the policemen.
Four days ago, riots at the prison left eight inmates killed and 12 others injured. According to Mohammad Rafiq Sherzay, spokesman for the directorate of health, told Salam Watandar back then that one prisoner got killed due to bullet wounds while seven others got killed due to ‘poisoning’.
A team of experts from Kabul have reached Herat to probe the incident, Jailani Farhad, spokesman for the provincial governor said.
According to a well-placed source, administration of the prison has been changed following the deadly incident. The source said the unrest was sparked by a group of gangsters who were supervising criminal instances of kidnappings through mobilephones from inside the prison, but when police went in to take away their cellphones, they went to setting different parts of the prison on fire after consuming different substances.
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