Peasant family released from illegal detention

SADIQABAD: Eight members of a family were released from a landlord’s illegal detention in Chak 132 MB, a village in Sadiqabad, on Wednesday on orders of an additional sessions judge.

The five people who were chained and locked up – 70-year-old Baba Rafiq, his sons Altaf, Ali Ahmed and Bashir Ahmed and a grandson, 5-year-old Atique –  were recovered by a police team headed by Sub Inspector Bashir Ahmed from a private jail set up at the landlord Chaudary Sarwar Waraich’s outhouse. Three others, Rafiq’s 14-year-old daughter, Bashiran, and his daughter-in-law, Yasmin, and another grandson, 3-year-old Shabbir, were later recovered from Waraich’s house.

The action was taken after one of the family’s relative filed a writ petition in the ASJ’s court.

The family alleged that Waraich had held them for 20 years and denied Waraich’s claim that they owed him Rs150,000.

“We never borrowed such an amount from him,” said Baba Rafiq. Asked how much they actually owed him, he said, “We are illiterate. We could not keep record of the seed, pesticide and fertilisers that he bought on our account.” Baba Rafiq said that every year Waraich took most of the harvest, leaving them just enough for their sustenance. He also kept adding to the amount he claimed they owed him.

Speaking before the ASJ, Waraich denied that he had held the family illegally. “They were staying there at will,” he said. However, he insisted that the family actually owed him about Rs150,000.

Yasmin, Rafiq’s daughter-in-law, told The Express Tribune that Waraich once sent her off to one of his friends for Rs50,000. She said that the man raped her and beat her up on resistance.

She also alleged that Waraich routinely used to rape her sister-in-law, Bashiran.

The family, however, said that they lacked resources to prosecute the landlord, he was an influential man and had contacts with politicians and the police. Rafiq said, “We don’t even have a roof on our heads.”

When asked about the family’s plans for the future, Rafiq said, they would look for similar work at some other landlord’s farms.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 16^th, 2010.