The public call offices (PCOs) in provincial prisons have been closed by the orders of the NWFP Inspector General (IG) Prisons. The orders were given after it was found that jailed Taliban were using these PCOs to stay in touch with their leadership/fellow militants that are at large.

PCOs in prisons were opened in the MMA government for the purpose of allowing prisoners to keep contact with their kin. But over the past few months, several cases of imprisoned Taliban in jails making contact with their leadership, by using the prisons PCOs, were brought to the notice of the authorities. IG Prisons Tanveer-ul- Haq Sipra then issued orders to ban the use of PCOs in prisons. The use of cell phones by prisoners is also strictly banned already and news reports say that some prisoners had been bribing jail officials to obviate a body search, thus saving their cell phones from being taken by the prison authorities.