An object believed to be a human hand was found in the beef curry served on Friday at 'sehri', the pre-dawn meal during the holy month of Ramzan, an official at Kot Lakhpat Jail said on the condition of anonymity.
A prisoner Fahim Raza raised alarm after finding the suspicious object in the food served that forced him to puke, the official said. Other prisoners refused to eat their meals as they protested against the jail administration's "gross negligence".
Some of the jailbirds were also reportedly subjected to torture for raising the matter with higher authorities. Meanwhile, a prison official reportedly removed the "human hand" from Raza's meal and told inmates to keep mum about the incident. An investigation into the matter has been issued under DIG (Lahore region) Mirza Shahid Saleem after Punjab Home Department's Deputy Secretary for Prisons Khalid Rasool visited the jail last afternoon.
Saleem recorded the statements of 14 prisoners in the barrack where the incident occurred and examined the food served to them. Sources said the jail administration put pressure on prisoners to hush up the incident. The object found in Raza's meal was neither preserved nor sent to a laboratory for examination.
The DIG said he had thoroughly investigated the matter and has concluded that the object found in the food was not a human hand, but "actually it was a piece of cooked meat which had a deformed shape." He claimed there was no need to conduct any laboratory analysis as it was evident from the statements of some prisoners that the object was a piece of meat.