The jail directorate will purchase about 6,500 Chinese rifles with 10,000 rounds of bullet while the Bangladesh Army will provide the jail guards with 550,000 bullets of .303 rifles for free.
The jail directorate decided to purchase the firearms and ammunition as part of its initiative to modernise the antiquated jail security system.
Of the 6,500 Chinese rifles, 5,500 will be procured through the Bangladesh Army while the rest through the police, sources said.
Inspector General of Prisons (IG-Prisons) Brig Gen Zakir Hassan on Thursday told The Daily Star that the Army would provide the jail guards with 550,000 bullets of .303 rifle for free for using those for training purposes.
This will enable the jail guards to have firing practice during training, a facility that had not been provided to them earlier.
Sources said 1,000 rifles along with other firearms had been imported from China through the police for jail guards during the rule of BNP-led coalition government. But the cost of the firearms was very high.
Later, the jail authorities decided to buy the Chinese rifles through the Army in a bid to get the firearms at a lower price, sources said.
The IG-Prisons said most of the Chinese rifles to be procured through the Bangladesh Army would be brand new.
“The Bangladesh Army can assemble Chinese rifles at the Gazipur Arms factory. They will import necessary materials from China and assemble the firearms at the factory for jail guards,” Brig Gen Zakir Hassan said adding that a Chinese rifle can be used for over 100 years.
Of the 1,000 rifles to be purchased through the police, they have already received 300 Chinese rifles, he said adding that they are expecting to receive 400 more rifles from the Army in a month.
The rest of the Chinese rifles would be purchased in phases, he added.
Additional Inspector General of Police (Prisons) Col Md Ashraful Islam Khan said modern equipment is required to increase efficiency of the jail guards.
“The government has already allocated the required money for purchasing the firearms,” he added.
The Chinese rifles they had received from the police have already been handed out to different jails, Deputy Inspector General of Prisons (DIG-Prisons) Maj Shamsul Haider Siddique said adding that there are about 6,500 jail guards in 67 prisons across the country.
Sources close to the home ministry and the jail directorate said, the police had purchased each Chinese rifle at a cost of about Tk 100,000 during the rule of the four-party alliance government while it would cost about Tk 3,000 to 4,000 if it had been procured through the Army.
The .303 rifles, which are still working, will be used for training purposes while the defective ones will be sent to the Central Ordnance Depot (COD).