Five prisoners were killed, 20 others injured Saturday and Sunday in a riot in Pulecharkhi prison on the outskirts of Afghanistan's capital Kabul, local TV station reported.

"Five prisoners were killed, and 20 were injured so far during the riot in the prison," Tolo TV said Sunday.

The riot begun Saturday at 4 PM (11:30 GMT) and continued for almost 10 hours till early Sunday morning. Unconfirmed report from inside the prison put the number of injured to 30.

At least one police was also injured, said an official who refused to have his name mentioned.
 
About 1,350 political prisoners on charge of involvement in terrorist activities and 700 criminals imprisoned there joined the riot.

The unrest, apparently aroused by the dissatisfaction to the order of changing the uniform, was later developed into a riot after which prisoners occupied all the six buildings of the prison.

About 1,000 Afghan police and Afghan National Army soldiers were sent to surround the place and control the situation.

The prisoners from the window of the buildings shouted "Death to US" and "Death to Karzai", burning things in the rooms and threw them out. They asked to meet with the head of reconciliation committee and chairman of the upper house. But negotiation has not yet begun at the moment.

Meantime, Mohammad Qasim Hashimzai, a deputy for the Justice Ministry, said that a number of inmates equipped with sticks occupied the women section Saturday and began attacking the warders in their bid to escape.

Similar riots in late 2004 left four police and four prisoners dead in the Pul-e-Charkhi prison, while seven suspected Taliban and al-Qaida operatives disguising themselves as visitors escaped the jail late last year.

(Xinhua News Agency February 27, 2006)