People placed in safe custody are inevitably sent to various Jails under court order and their fate becomes uncertain due to absence of a definitive time limit for such shelter period. claimed Aln-O-Salish Kendra (ASK) at a press conference in the city yesterday.

"There exists no separate ward or cell for safe custody in Jails but people are sent there under court order." the legal aid organisation said in Its written statement, adding that there is no provision of safe custody under the jail code.

The press conference, held at the Jatiya Press Club, was attended by ASK executive director Salma Sobhan. Nila Chanda and Khurshid Alam, among others.

A total of about 350 women and children are now in safe custody in various Jails across the country, according to the latest statistics made available to the ASK by the jail administration.

The concept of safe custody as practised in our country lacks legal basis as such provision does not exist either In the Code of Criminal Procedure or in the Jail Code," the statement said, adding the Judicial discretion of the court for safe custody of women and children has now become customary.

The ASK claimed that people put in safe custody are virtually treated as convicts or undertrial prisoners in the absence of separate rooms for them in the jails. Besides, they gdt easy ex-postire to criminal aMlvines IW jail, and they are also psycho--logfcally’affected. - ”

"Only women and children are placed In safe custody." the ASK revealed, adding that people are mainly taken into safe custody when rescued by police or BDR while being trafficked, or when they are victims of rape cases, marriage disputes, and lost women and children whose guardians cannot be traced Immediately and on questions of wardship.

The government does not sanction clothing for those Blaced in safe custody." said ila Chanda while presenting the written statement citing the

example of one Ambia kept in the safe custody of Dhaka Central Jail who has been wearing the same clothes for the last 10 months.

"At times Ambia borrows clothes from others, only to wash her own things,", she added.