Islamabad: Pakistani authorities on Tuesday stepped up security in jail for a doctor convicted of helping the CIA track Osama bin Laden after an intelligence agency reported he faced a threat from other prisoners.
The intelligence agency submitted a report to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Amir Haider Khan Hoti that Shakeel Afridi faced threats within the Central Jail in Peshawar, where he is being held after his conviction by a court in the tribal belt.
The intelligence report said there are 3,000 prisoners at the Central Jail and many of them had "negative sentiments" towards Afridi, a news channel reported.
The Chief Minister subsequently directed the provincial Home Department to provide "high-profile" security to Afridi.
The authorities had earlier provided two unarmed guards to Afridi.
A court in Khyber tribal region had given Afridi a 33-year prison term for running a fake vaccination campaign in a bid to collect DNA from the compound in Abbottabad town where bin Laden was killed by US commandoes last year.
Afridi`s conviction has angered the US and the Senate Appropriations Committee voted to cut aid to Pakistan by a symbolic 33 million dollars, a million dollars for each year of the jail term.
PTI
