PESHAWAR, June 26: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa prison department has seized around 60 cellphones from the inmates at Peshawar central prison during one week, said provincial inspector general of prisons Khalid Abbas on Wednesday.

Mr Abbas, who is also the superintendent of Peshawar central prison, told reporters here that cellphones were seized during the crackdown on prisoners with banned items.He said some prisoners found with cellphones were deprived of remissions, while others kept in solitary confinement as punishment.

The inspector general of prisons said the crackdown would be extended to other prisons of the province and that prisoners won’t be allowed to keep banned items, including cellphones and narcotics.

He said he had suspended an official of the Peshawar central prison over provision of banned goods to inmates and warned other members of the staff against such acts.

Mr Abbas said banned items couldn’t reach prisoners without the support of insiders.

He said the Peshawar central prison had 10 public call offices for prisoners to stay in contact with their families on nominal rates.

The inspector general of prisons said cellphones inside the jail were a menace as some prisoners used them for illegal activities.

Without naming Dr Shakil Afridi, he said he had sacked a member of the prison staff for providing cellphone to a high-profile prisoner.

Mr Abbas said after the last year Bannu jailbreak, the government had allocated Rs350 million for security of prisons in the province.

He said around Rs120 million had been spent on procurement of weapons and safety gadgets, including walkthrough gates, explosive scanners and closed-circuit television cameras.

The inspector general said the prison officials were responsible for security inside and outside the premises and in case of terrorist attack from outside, they had to depend on the help of law-enforcement agencies.

He said around 8,500 prisoners, including undertrials and convicts, were kept in prisons across the province and around 350 of them among them were on death row.

Mr Abbas said the Peshawar central prison had around 1,750 inmates, mostly undertrials, though its capacity was 850.

He said certain portions of the prison had been dismantled to put up a new building work on which would complete in 2015.

The inspector general said special residential quarters to spend time with families were available in Peshawar, Dera Ismail Khan, Haripur and Bannu after every four months to prisoners undergoing more than five years imprisonment.

He, however, said the residential quarters in Peshawar were in bad shape and therefore, prisoners were unable to avail themselves of it.