Punjab has launched a free electric shuttle service at District Jail Attock, transporting visitors between the jail’s main entrance and the visitors’ shed as part of a broader prison reform programme aimed at making correctional facilities more accessible and humane for families of inmates. The initiative was formally inaugurated by Assistant Commissioner Attock Arif Mahmood Qureshi with support from the Punjab Prisons Foundation, and was introduced under the directions of Punjab Home Secretary Dr Ahmad Javed Qazi and Inspector General Prisons Punjab Mian Salik Jalal.
The electric shuttle is intended to particularly benefit elderly visitors, women, persons with disabilities, and families travelling from distant areas, all of whom face physical difficulty covering the distance on foot within the prison premises, especially during extreme weather. The service is free of charge, removing an additional financial burden from families who are already dealing with the costs and logistics of regular prison visits. The Attock deployment is part of a phased rollout of electric shuttles across Punjab’s prisons, following the earlier launch of the service at Central Jail Lahore and Narowal Jail, which were inaugurated by Chairperson Prison Reforms Task Force Rana Manan Khan and Home Secretary Dr Ahmad Javed Qazi.
The electric shuttle initiative sits within a wider technology and welfare-driven prison reform agenda that Punjab has been advancing over the past year. The Punjab Home Department has also announced the forthcoming launch of the Mulaqat App, a mobile application that will allow families to schedule prison visitation appointments online, eliminating the uncertainty and waiting associated with in-person visit arrangements. Under the Safe Prisons Project, 12,000 modern security cameras, scanners, and jammers are being installed across Punjab’s jails to enhance monitoring and security, while Pakistan Calls Online services have been introduced to facilitate inmates’ communication with their families digitally. The government is also expanding prison capacity by 6,000 inmates this year, with new women’s prisons under construction in Lahore, Faisalabad, and Rawalpindi, collectively representing one of the more comprehensive overhauls of Punjab’s prison system that the province has undertaken in recent years.
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