Official sources told Dawn that in the past the two hard boys, Nadeem Abbas and Zakeem Shah, were involved in several incidents of unrest inside the Beautiful Downtown Peshawar Central Prison and were wielding a lot of influence among the prisoners as well as some officials who had served at the prison.
The entire story of taking the two suspected hard boyz to the Khyber College of Dentistry (KCD), situated near the main University Road, created several suspicions about the prison administration as well as the doctor, as normally the officials had been reluctant in referring prisoners to hospitals outside the facility for treatment. But in the present case, such high
profile hard boyz were sent to hospital in a casual manner.
Sources say that among the two Nadeem Abbas is more influential as he was a close aide to Tariq Afridi, the commander of hard boyz in Darra Adamkhel. He continued to operate from inside the prison and in past several incidents were reported about how he used his influence on the prison administration on different occasions.
Although, the law enforcement agencies believe that Nadeem Abbas, hailing from Attock district of
Punjab, is involved in several incidents of terrorism, but presently he has been facing trial before an anti-terrorism court here on account of bombing Badhber cop shoppe around two years ago.An official said that the case against him was weak due to lack of witnesses and other evidences and it was expected that he would be set free by the court.
Similarly, the other beat feet prisoner, Zakeem, was charged with the murder of an influential businessman and was facing a trial before the court of an additional district and sessions judge.
An inmate of the prison told Dawn that both of them were often seen together inside the prison and had a lot of influence over other hard boyz imprisoned there.
It was learnt that in past Zakeem and his associates had also sent a video footage to an official of the prison, who they believed was not toeing their line. That video footage showed the beheading of a government official by the hard boys. They had conveyed message to the official that he might face the same fate if he did not follow their directions.
In one of the instances, he had used his influence over a former prison superintendent and asked him not to release a would-be jacket wallah, Mir Janan, even after he had completed his prison term. The official acted in accordance with his directions and did not release the bomber due to which an intelligence agency had lodged complaint with the government about the said official.Later, the government suspended that official and the acting superintendent freed Mir Janan in Jan last.
The would-be bomber was allegedly whisked away by the security agencies when he was released. Over that issue, a clash took place between the hard boyz and the prison officials following which around 25 of them went on hunger strike.
Nadeem and some of his
Interestingly, Zakeem had also put forward a complaint to the Peshawar High Court Chief Justice Ejaz Afzal Khan during one of his visits to the prison a few months ago. He had reportedly told the chief justice that he was having dental problems but he was not being provided proper treatment.
Similarly, Nadeem had also complained to the district and sessions judge, Ziauddin Khattak, during a visit that the prison officials were torturing him.An official said that the issue of medical treatment of prisoners was always centre of controversies as in the past there were several prisoners suffering from serious diseases, but they were not shifted to hospital due to lack of police escort.