The prison’s main building has collapsed, the walls have crumbled and most of the guards have fled. For prisoner Bashir Ahmad, there are no obstacles between him and freedom. None, but himself. Still, he and two other inmates are living in a makeshift hut amid the rubble of what used to be the region’s main prison, patiently waiting for their jailers to return and put them back behind bars. Two guards share the hut with them, but the walls between them have broken down too. ‘‘Why should I escape when I have only one year left to go?’’ said Ahmad, 55, a bearded, heavy-set man who traded his prison uniform for a waistcoat and a traditional shalwar kameez from a nearby relief camp. The Central Jail in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, is among thousands of buildings that caved in after the 7.6-magnitude quake ripped through this mountainous region on October 8. For the most part, the result was what you’d expect: more than 100 of the jail’s 116 prisoners, nearly all of whom were in the central yard when the quake struck, immediately fled into the streets of the ruined city, where well over 10,000 people are believed to have died. About 10 death row inmates, who were in a special locked ward, were killed when the building collapsed on them. But Ahmad and two other prisoners, Hidayat Ullah (50) and Abdul Latif (58), stayed. All three were convicted for murder and have only a year left on their sentences. Injured in the quake, Ahmad stays in the hut all day while his two friends wander into the streets to find food and water for themselves and the two guards. ‘‘I have seen some prisoners (in Muzaffarabad) doing relief work,’’ said Mohammed Fayyaz. ‘‘Some of them saw me too and promised to come back.’’ Forcing them back into prison now would be pointless. ‘‘We don’t have any place to keep them,’’ he said.
