Justice Project Pakistan

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Justice Project Pakistan

JPP investigates, litigates, educates, and advocates on their behalf.

Justice Project Pakistan (JPP) is a non-profit organization based in Lahore that represents the most vulnerable Pakistani prisoners facing the harshest punishments, at home and abroad. Our lawyers provide free legal representation to prisoners on death row and those unlawfully detained in secret prisons around the world. We litigate strategically to expose and redress key problems in Pakistan's cr

iminal justice system, such as fair trial and torture. We help educate national and international litigators at annual seminars and workshops in Pakistan.

21/08/2026

In 1993, Muhammad Sarfaraz was just 17 when he was arrested. Pakistan did not yet have legislation protecting children in conflict with the law, so his age never became a question the court was required to ask. In 1998, he was sentenced to hang.

Then, for the first time, Pakistan enacted a law for child offenders: the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance, passed in 2000. A presidential notification the following year said children sentenced to death, like Sarfaraz, would have their sentences reviewed. In 2008, an inquiry was finally ordered to determine whether Sarfaraz had been a minor at the time of his arrest. For a moment, it looked like his way out.

Instead, a court staff member misplaced his file. The one document that could have proven his age disappeared because of someone’s negligence. For four years, Sarfaraz sat on death row while no inquiry took place because there was no evidence left for age determination. When the missing file was finally noticed in 2012, the court did not reopen the case and instead stated that it was “no longer competent” to decide the matter. That administrative failure was enough to get his mercy appeal dismissed.

Years later, when a higher court ordered the file rebuilt, the system found a new way to fail him. The inquiry dismissed his juvenility claim over a school record, despite his family insisting Sarfaraz had never been to school. His case moved between courtrooms for months. When his lawyers tried one last appeal to the Supreme Court, prison officials blocked them from getting Sarfaraz’s signature on the power-of-attorney forms required to proceed.

On May 10, 2016, after 22 years on death row, Muhammad Sarfaraz was hanged. He was failed by a system that could not keep hold of his case file, and never gave him a real chance to be free from the sentence.

This is the second story in our campaign, documenting the cases of juveniles sentenced to death and executed in Pakistan. We tell Sarfaraz’s story to remember how a misplaced file became the reason he lost his childhood, and then his life.

19/08/2026

When Aftab Bahadur was just 15 years old, his days were spent balancing school with his work as a trainee plumber in Lahore. Overnight, that ordinary childhood was torn apart. Following the murder of a woman and her two young sons in September 1992, Aftab got arrested in a hasty investigation alongside his colleague, Ghulam Mustafa.

What followed was a nightmare no child should ever endure. Aftab was subjected to severe custodial torture until a confession was forced out of him. The only eyewitness to the incident claimed he saw Aftab commit the murders. Tried under a rushed, fast-track law that gave courts barely a month to decide, Aftab was sentenced to death in 1993.

He grew up behind bars, lingering on death row for 23 long years. As a prisoner belonging to a religious minority, he faced intense isolation and constant threats to his life from other inmates. Yet, in the darkest corners of prison, Aftab found a way to survive; he sought refuge in painting. Art became Aftab’s voice and he spent years pouring his soul onto the canvas.

Closer to the time of his hanging, the witness revealed that Aftab was not even present at the time of incident and that he had also been brutally tortured into false testimony. The legal system even turned a blind eye to the formal affidavit signed by him in which he withdrew his testimony. Aftab’s co-accused, Ghulam, also repeatedly declared that torture forced him to falsely involve Aftab, and even as the victim's family forgave Ghulam, the system refused to spare Aftab. On June 10, 2015, at the age of 38, Aftab Bahadur was executed.

Swipe to view Aftab's artwork and get to experience his inner agony as he awaited death.

This post is the 1st story in our campaign, documenting the tragic lives and case files of juveniles sentenced to death and hanged in Pakistan. Today, we recall Aftab’s tragic story, so that his stolen life, unwavering truth, and his art are never forgotten.

In the painting shown here, Aftab painted vibrant flowers climbing directly up the gallows he knew was waiting for him, a heartbreakingly tender testament to a ge

17/08/2026

Prison overcrowding is a gradual process; but at times, it might rise sharply. In Pakistan, this process has been alarmingly rapid. Pakistan’s prisons continue to hold people who may not need to be in custody, including those who remain detained because bail, diversion, probation, parole, and other alternatives to imprisonment are not used effectively.

As of 2026, Pakistan’s prison population has reached 112,781, against the designed capacity of only 68,832. Between 2025 and 2026, the prison population grew by 10.5%, more than six times the growth recorded between 2023 and 2024.

This is not just a capacity problem, but a systemic one, and Pakistan cannot build its way out of overcrowding until meaningful reform efforts are urgently initiated. Real reform means analysing who is being sent to prison, who is being kept there unnecessarily, and what alternatives exist beyond imprisonment.

Justice Project Pakistan’s Prison Data Report 2026, produced in collaboration with the National Commission for Human Rights and co-funded by the European Union in Pakistan, examines the factors pushing Pakistan’s prisons beyond capacity, and seeks why reform must begin before a person enters a prison cell.

Stay tuned for the full report.

This campaign is co-funded by the European Union. Its contents are the sole responsibility of Justice Project Pakistan/National Commission for Human Rights and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.

14/08/2026

Freedom means something different to each of us. For some, it is the right to dream. For others, it is the right to speak, to be heard, to think freely, to live with dignity, and to hope for a better tomorrow.

This Independence Day, we reflect on what freedom truly means and the responsibility we all carry in protecting it.

13/08/2026

An increasing share of Pakistan’s prison population is made up of people detained under the Control of Narcotic Substances Act, 1997. In 2022, the law became significantly stricter, introducing tougher bail provisions, expanded mandatory minimum sentences, and limited access to parole, probation, and remissions for many people convicted under drug laws. In practice, this means more people can remain in custody for longer, even before their trial begins.

This may sound reasonable when applied to traffickers running organised networks, but that is often not who ends up behind bars. Many imprisoned under drug laws are low-level couriers, people who transported drugs for a small payment, often out of financial desperation rather than formal involvement in the drug trade. The law rarely distinguishes between someone at the margins and someone organising the trade; both are met with the same punishment.

Women are particularly affected. Many detained under this law come from economically marginalised backgrounds, with limited access to legal representation and little ability to navigate the system once inside it. When drug policy is built to punish first and examine circumstances later, it does not just target drugs. It fills prisons with people who had the least power to begin with, contributing to prison overcrowding.

Justice Project Pakistan’s Prison Data Report 2026, produced in collaboration with the National Commission for Human Rights and co-funded by the European Union in Pakistan, examines how narcotics laws are shaping Pakistan’s prisons, and the need for meaningful reform in the drug laws.

Full report launching soon.

This campaign is co-funded by the European Union. Its contents are the sole responsibility of Justice Project Pakistan/National Commission for Human Rights and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.

12/08/2026

Walk into any jail in Pakistan right now and you'll find almost double the number of people it was built to hold. Prisons across the country are running at 163.8% of their capacity, and in Sindh, it's even worse, at 193.6%. Cells meant for four people are holding ten, and prisoners sleep in shifts because there isn't enough floor space for everyone to lie down at once.

The solution isn't to build more prisons. It's to reduce the number of people being detained unnecessarily, and in some cases, wrongfully.

This is what we found in the Pakistan Annual Prisons Data Report 2026, produced jointly by Justice Project Pakistan and the National Commission for Human Rights, co-funded by European Union in Pakistan. We're putting these numbers out there because research like this should mark the beginning of lasting reform.

This campaign is co-funded by the European Union. Its contents are the sole responsibility of Justice Project Pakistan/National Commission for Human Rights and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.

10/08/2026

Behind Pakistan’s 128 prison walls are over 100,000 stories. Most of them, we never hear. On Prisoners’ Justice Day, we’re taking you inside to where people are too often punished not for what they did, but for who they are. Their poverty, identity and sometimes, simply their existence.

This isn’t new. It’s a system built on control, inherited from a colonial past that was never designed with humanity in mind. Drawing from JPP’s Prison Data Report 2024, this is a look at why reform isn’t just policy anymore but a human right.

It’s time we stopped asking prisons to punish, and started asking them to restore.

09/08/2026

In September 2004, a dispute over an electricity bill in Rawalpindi changed Ghulam Abbas's life forever. He was sentenced to death in 2006. Year after year, his appeals were dismissed, and in 2019, his mercy petition was rejected too.

However, behind all that paperwork, the system had failed to truly examine his psychological condition. Ghulam's family had lived with mental illness for generations, including his father, aunts and sister. He also did not receive any education as a child due to what his family called a learning disability. He struggled with anger outbursts and seizures his whole life. Moreover, he lived with untreated Hepatitis and Tuberculosis behind bars, which worsened because of the prison conditions.

He was heading towards ex*****on and none of his medical conditions stopped that, until a veteran psychiatrist, and later a Supreme Court-appointed medical board, finally confirmed in 2020 what should have been diagnosed years ago. Ghulam Abbas suffered from schizophrenia.

His case became part of a landmark 2021 Supreme Court judgment called Safia Bano v Home Department. The Court ruled that a prisoner who cannot understand the reason for their punishment cannot be justly executed for it. It also ordered a fresh mercy petition to be filed on Ghulam’s behalf, and directed his transfer from prison to a mental health institute for treatment.

In May 202, Ghulam Abbas passed away tragically while being under that court-ordered psychiatric care. He was still in the system's hands, being treated, and still waiting for the recognition that came far too late.

As we approach Prisoners' Justice Day 2026, we conclude our campaign by remembering Ghulam Abbas, and every prisoner awaiting justice while living with mental illness.

08/08/2026

While collecting data for our book “Serving Time: Pakistan’s Prisons Through the Ages”, team JPP visited the women's section of Lahore Central Jail.

Among the women we met, one story was impossible to walk away from; it was a story which made us pause and reflect further about the systemic loopholes in Pakistan’s criminal justice with respect to women and children.

Saira Saeed had spent six years there, and as per her own account, during that time, she was a mother first before being a prisoner. Her daughter carried trauma from before their time in prison, and needed care, which according to Saria, the jail struggled to provide. Therefore, she did whatever she could in her capacity.

During the day, she looked after her daughter. By night, once her daughter finally slept, she stayed up painting Eid cards and Ramzan cards, to sell for whatever money she could make. That income was not much, but it was hers, and she spent it on the small things her daughter needed.

Then COVID-19 hit, and the work stopped. What little she'd saved over a year went straight into hand sanitizers and face masks, anything to keep her daughter safe. She told our researchers about requesting things her daughter needed: therapy, snacks, a working fan for a child with asthma. Saira said those simple demands went unanswered because she had no family outside to lean on.

In the days leading up to Prisoners' Justice Day, we're sharing real stories through our campaign. Today, we share Saira's because she represents all the mothers in prison who face a system which was not designed around the realities of caregiving, reproductive healthcare, child development support, and mental health services.

07/08/2026

Khizar Hayat was a police officer, a loving father, and a man known to be kind and a little too trusting; the trust which a local fraudulent spiritual healer exploited by taking away his land through manipulation. Under the same influence, he ended up committing grave offence. In 2003, Khizar was sentenced to death on murder charges after the fatal shooting of his friend.

He was first formally diagnosed with "treatment-resistant" paranoid schizophrenia by jail authorities in 2008, but instead of treatment and care, he was confined alone.

Khizar Hayat spent 16 years on death row and his lawyer failed to call a single witness in his defence. Four black warrants were issued, which were temporarily delayed. Even the United Nations stepped in, urging Pakistan to halt his ex*****on.

Just weeks after his case was finally sent to a larger Supreme Court bench in 2019, Khizar passed away in a hospital bed. Justice arrived just late enough to miss him.

In the days leading up to Prisoners' Justice Day, we are sharing stories through our campaign. Today, we say Khizar’s name, as a reminder that mental illness is not a crime, and no one should die in a cage because a system refused to see them.

Address

Lahore

Telephone

+924236286415

Website

http://www.jpp.org.pk/

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