Alwaght-A riot has broken out inside a prison in Afghanistan’s northern
Jowzjan Province, resulting in the killing of two police officers and one
inmate, as Press TV reported.
Inmates
at the overcrowded prison in the town of Shibirghan, including pro-Taliban
militants and regular criminals, overpowered the guards at the facility as they
were conducting a routine security check, taking three of them hostage on
Sunday.
The
prisoners later killed two of the guards, cutting their bodies into pieces, and
set the third guard on fire. He is now
in hospital suffering from serious burns.
Five more guards were wounded when they tried to save their colleagues.
The
prisoners then staged a futile attempt to escape from the prison compound. One prisoner was killed and fifteen others
were wounded in the botched escape attempt.
Prison
officials say the situation is now stable following the intervention of town
elders to calm the prisoners. However,
they say the inmates have gone on a hunger strike.
There
are 800 prisoners in the prison of the town of Shibirghan, the provincial
capital of Jowzjan. Inmates at the
prison are from both Jowzjan and neighboring Sari Pul provinces.
Nearly
fourteen years have passed since the US-led invasion of Afghanistan. However, the war-torn country remains in a
crisis in economic, cultural, political and security aspects.
