Kathmandu, September 14

Murder convict Charles Gurmukh Sobhraj, who is doing time at the Central Prison today filed a writ petition demanding allowance and food amount on par with police personnel deployed in jails.

The government provides prisoners Rs 45 and 700 grams of rice every day.

Sobhraj said in the writ that the government had hiked the daily allowance given to police personnel who were deployed in the prisons in the wake of soaring prices of food stuffs, but the government had done nothing to hike the daily allowance for prisoners. He questioned how the prisoners would be able to survive in such a situation.

Sobhraj said the amount of rice and daily allowance provided by the government to prisoners was far from enough and that was the reason why prisoners were not in good health.

Sobhraj said that the discriminatory treatment of inmates was comparable to torture meted out against Jews by the Nazis during World War II.

He also stated the government had not implemented National Human Rights Commission’s recommendation to increase the amount of daily allowance from Rs 45 to Rs 145 for prison inmates.