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Seekers celebrate Gurupournima to express gratitude to the Guru.
On Gurupournima day, the grace, blessings and non-verbal (subtle) knowledge endowed by the Guru principle is a thousand times more than that on any other day.
Meaning: Only by the grace of the Guru can the disciple attain his ultimate benefaction, that is spiritual progress.
Gurupournima is the pure full moon day of the Hindu calendar month of ashadh (usually coincides with July of the English calender). This day is celebrated every year to express gratitude unto the Guru Principle. The ArchGuru, Sage Vyas (founder of the Guru-disciple lineage), is worshipped on this day. This festival is the greatest festival in the life of a seeker. Of course, even this celebration in gratitude to the Guru is done for the seeker’s spiritual progress, since the Guru is a manifest form of The Lord Himself. The Guru Principle is a thousand times more active on this day than on any other through out the year. Under the pretext of this celebration, the festival provides an unmatchable opportunity to progress spiritually through service and sacrifice unto the Truth. That is why seekers and Disciple participate in this mission for the Truth with all their body, wealth and mind.
Posted by AHSAN.A.SHEIKH
Work at Nabha jail on; to start at Kapurthala, Faridkot by this year-end
The problem of overcrowding in jails in Punjab would soon be a thing of the past, as the state plans to add more capacity in its existing jails and set up three new jails at Nabha, Kapurthala and Faridkot.
Sources say a sum of Rs 201 crore has been earmarked for setting up new jails and for adding infrastructure facilities and new barracks in some existing jails in the state.
Of this, while a sum of about Rs 170 crore is required for new jails, the rest of the money would be spent on adding new barracks and infrastructure in the existing jails.
Confirming this, Punjab Minister for Jails and Tourism Hira Singh Gabria told The Indian Express that while work on the Nabha jail is already on and its boundary wall is complete, work on Kapurthala and Faridkot jails would start by the end of this year, when the foundation stones of these jails are laid.
Posted by AHSAN.A.SHEIKH
The case of the brutal torture of an inmate has been ignored by the media. One wonders why? Where is the outrage?
The Liberal media and the Western press hates the Taliban and the love the British System of Justice. However no one is outraged at the bloody torture of prisoners and the inhuman treatment meted out to the men and women most of whom are jailed for no reason at all. The innocent victim of biased justice simply have to bear the incarceration.
According to some estimates 60% of the prisoners in Pakistani prisons are innocent of the crimes that they are convicted of. The prisoners are the poor and the destitute who cannot afford attorneys who can get them off with NROs, bribes and intimidation. Ever heard of a rich person’s child go to prison in Pakistan? It doesn’t happen.
Pakistani prisoners have leg irons, and are subjected to the worst atrocities known to man. If one does not know what a leg iron is, it a steel rod about half an inch thick and is clasped to both feet. This keeps the legs of hte prisoner apart so that he has limited motion and literally cannot walk. These leg irons are part of the British legacy.
Anglo Saxon law incarcerates prisons for crimes. hese jails become rape and sodomy centers bringing out the worst beastliness, far removed from any semblance of humanity. The same conditions exists in the USA, UK, Australia and the rest of the world where the prison system exists. The USA has 5% of the world’s population but has the dubious distinction of owning 25% of the world’s prison population.
Posted by Iqra Asif
Our visit to the main jail provided us with many insights to the prevailing situation and conditions thereby based on the material received from various sources, information gathered through visits to jail, communications received from the public, experiences/observations narrated by citizens and recommendations received from relevant professionals. Though security measures have been taken to assure that discipline is maintained throughout the premises of the jail such as they do not allow anyone to enter without a proper check and a stamp on the front of hand. The walls of the jail have also been kept high so that they can ensure that prisoners are not able to escape by any chance. Once you have entered the jail, its a necessity to abide by all the regulations pertaining to the laws.
Moreover, people are not allowed to take their cameras along but we still managed to take pictures of some of the important things. The jail contains various sections according to the nature of crime and has been separated for foreigners and the local prisoners. However, we still came across the unhealthy conditions especially for the women who had been sentenced to death. They have been exposed to the most inhuman treatment. They cannot leave their present rooms where they have been locked up. There are no separate bath rooms attached to the room, so they have to fulfil all their physical and personal requirements within the boundaries of that room.
There has been outcry over the inhuman conditions prevailing in Pakistani jails. If we as citizens are set out on the mission of strengthening and stabilizing Pakistan step by step, then security and structural changes are desperately required for administering reforms.
In July 2005 (a week after the 7 July London bombings) Shah and two colleagues from Caravan Film in London were arrested in Peshawar in Pakistan's NWFP, and held without charge in solitary confinement in a torture prison. Much of the time they were handcuffed, stripped virtually naked, and blindfolded. After sixteen days of interrogations in a "fully equipped torture room," Shah and his colleagues were released. The Pakistani government agreed that they had done nothing wrong. Tahir Shah gave an interview which was screened on British TV's Channel 4 News, and published an article in the British Sunday Times about the ordeal. Shah has publicly maintained his affection for Pakistan, despite the rough treatment he and his film crew received at the hands of the Pakistani secret services. The illegal custody earned Shah and his film crew a mention in the US Department of State's 2005 report on Pakistan's human rights practices. The news story came back into the spotlight in July 2008, when a British MP claimed that the British government had 'outsourced' the torture of UK citizens to Pakistani security agencies.
Post by Noor Shahid
The VIP cells of Attock jail in Punjab province were being whitewashed and new curtains and furniture put in place to house former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and his brother who plan to return back to Pakistan from forced exile on September 10, a news report has said The government will arrest the chief of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), and his brother, former Punjab chief minister Shahbaz Sharif, from the Islamabad airport on September 10, when they are scheduled to return to Pakistan and keep them in Attock jail, the Daily Times newspaper reported on Thursday quoting Geo news sources. According to the channel, the VIP cells of the jail were being cleaned and whitewashed for their "upcoming residents". New curtains and furniture have been placed in the cells where the two brothers would be detained, the channel said on Wednesday.
POSTED BY ANEEZA ALVI
400 Pakistanis still detained in Indian jails
KARACHI - About 400 innocent Pakistanis including children, elderly persons and women are still detained in various Indian prisons while the government of Pakistan is doing nothing to get them rid of the miserable condition.
Talking to The Nation here on Friday, Sarim Burney, vice chairman of Ansar Burney Trust International, said that these people, belonging to nearly 100 families, were gone to India to visit their native villages. But these figures are beyond the actual statistics of the people detained in Indian prisons.Sarim said that these Pakistani citizens were suffering in Indian jails without any criminal charges, however, Indian authorities had expressed their satisfaction over the innocency of these Pakistani citizens.He said that government of Pakistan could easily get them released from the Indian jails but no Pakistani official had contacted with the Indian authorities in this regard.Most of these people belongs to Karachi and of Gujrathi speaking who have been arrested from different Indian airports when they were departing for Pakistan with the alleged false travelling documents.
They were arrested from Attari (Amritsar) and Munabao.He said that the Indian lawyers were also looting the detained people by pleading their cases in Indian courts and collecting high charges. “About four agents are involved in providing false visas to the detained families.”He claimed that these false travelling documents were made by some agents operating in Karachi with the patronage of authorities concerned because with their support no illegal work can take place. “The authorities concerned have been failed to control human trafficking in the country, while the intelligence agencies also fail to curb such mafias.”
POSTED BY ANEEZA ALVIFinally, recent ruling allowed prisoners to have sex in Pakistani jails, along with privacy !!!! Sex is a taboo subject in Pakistan, if someone talks or writes about it; most of the people raise their eyebrows. Pakistan is a country with one of the highest childbirth ratio in the region. Sex is one of the popular leisure hobbies in the country; we keep producing babies yet deny talking about sex and sexual rights.Finally, a sane Islamic court has ruled that prisoners in jails across the country must have greater conjugal rights and visits from spousesVery logical conclusion based on the argument that, “lack of conjugal rights was behind rising levels of homosexual sex and drug addiction in jails”.Another interesting aspect of the ruling, it asserts that there are no facilities in any jail across the country and privacy is the need of the hour and authorities were ordered to construct facilities so that families can meet with the necessary seclusion.At last, as sane society we are moving away from ostrich syndrome, trying to address taboo subject in a rationale manner.Hope sanity continues ……
POSTED BY ANEEZA ALVI 
Global terror wars have complicated the life of ordinary people very badly every where. And any one who is brought to jail could be tortured the way the authorities and their henchmen in jails want, more so the so-called "suspected" or "potential" "terrorists". There has been outcry over the inhuman conditions prevailing, like in any other country, in Pakistani jails.
Pakistan ’s Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani has, as announced by him upon assuming premiership in March, set out on his mission of strengthening and stabilizing Pakistan step by step and by considering issue by issue. Issues of economics, politics, regional stability, “terrorism”, security and structural changes are being taken up for administering reforms. One of major issues, the Jail Reforms that evaded the rulers in Pakistan too long endangering the lives of less important people thrown into jails, has received due attention in Gilani’s dispensation.
Considering the plight of ordinary people on the streets, the conditions prevailing in jails need no elaboration as it is of anybody’s guess about the prevailing most inhuman conditions in every jail every where in the world, including known so-called democracies like India.
Earlier, chairing a committee meeting held to prepare recommendations on jail reforms, the premier said that the focus of jail reforms should be on improving the condition of jail inmates and jails should act a reformation centre instead of producing criminals. The premier said the government attaches high priority to the jail reforms and provision of facilities to the inmates and directed all the concerned authorities to come up with proposals in this regard at the earliest.
THE POLICE picked up Ghulam Jilani from his parents' home on the morning of 12 May 1998. Home was a village in the hills of Hazara, in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province. Ghulam was 13 and already earning his keep. After leaving school at 10, he worked as a minibus conductor.
The police wanted to see him because they had information that he had robbed a nearby shop of 2,700 rupees - about pounds 33. They took him down to the local police station. His family never saw him alive again.
At 4pm on the day of his arrest, police officer Muhammad Iqbal reported that Ghulam had hanged himself in the cell. Another boy, Sajid, who was sharing the cell, told a different story. "Ghulam was taken away," he told a medical examiner. "When he was brought back he was bleeding from the nose and mouth."
Ghulam Jilani was beaten to death by the police - and when word got around, the local community was so incensed that they rioted for three days. Two protesters died, but the police chief responsible was eventually arrested.
Pakistan ratified the convention in 1991. But a report published yesterday by Human Rights Watch, entitled Prison Bound - the Denial of Juvenile Justice in Pakistan, reveals that thousands of jailed Pakistani children continue to suffer many kinds of abuse.
These range from sex attacks to torture and murder, from confinement in conditions that breed disease to the use of leg irons. More than 80 per cent of the children held in Pakistani prisons are eventually acquitted but according to the report thousands spend months oryears on remand, crowded into insanitary lock-ups with hardened adult criminals, dependent on their families for food.
The majority of Pakistanis are children: according to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, 59 million - some 44 per cent of the total population - are under 15. And if, as the commission believes, 20 million children in the 5-to-15 age range are not attending school, that is roughly the number of Pakistan's child labourers.
Among the worst jobs performed by children in Pakistan are leather tanning, textile weaving, tobacco harvesting and making surgical instruments. Children working in tanneries suffer from skin disorders, stomach, kidney and lung ailments, and sun stroke.
Even those children fortunate enough to go to school have a brutal time of it. In one survey of middle school children in Karachi, more than 88 per cent were said to be physically and/or verbally abused by parents and teachers. In one madrasah - a Koranic seminary - in a suburb of Lahore, 14 children aged 7 to 17 were kept continually in chains for three years.
But it is the children in prison whose abuse is the most routine and inhuman. Most imprisoned children are held in company with adult prisoners. At the end of 1997, 3,700 children were in detention; most are held in police lock-ups.
Children in Pakistani prisons are often tortured - either to extract information or as punishment. Methods include severe beatings with rubber belts or leather implements, electric shocks, cuts, burns, and being hung upside down.
The most recent child to hang in Pakistan was Shamun Masih. Convicted of armed robbery and murder, committed when he was 14, he was executed on 30 September 1997.
SUFFERING
n More than 650 million children around the world live in absolute poverty.
n Nearly 250 million children work full time, often in dangerous conditions.
n 300,000 children - some as young as eight - are fighting in wars across the globe.