45 students chained up in seminary, recovered
Those recovered are mainly Pakhtuns aged between 12 and 50 years.
KARACHI:
The police moved into the Afghan Camp on Monday night near Sohrab Goth to recover around 45 persons who were kept chained-up in a basement of a seminary.
The Gadap Town police superintendent Rao Anwar, while talking toThe Express Tribune, said, “Those recovered are aged between 12 and 50 years and are mainly of Pakhtun ethnicity.” The SP added that those kept in the basement were students who were subjected to torture by the administration of the seminary. “A few drug addicts and mentally challenged persons were also among those who were recovered,” Anwar said.
“It seems that the administration was running a sort of religious school-cum-rehabilitation-centre and were receiving considerable sums of money from parents of those kept in for that purpose,” SP Anwar added.
According to the police, the administrator of the seminary, Mufti Dawood, fled during the raid. However, the police apprehended his subordinate Qari Muhammad Usman along with two watchmen from the site. “Usman is a resident of Battagram district in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) and arrived in Karachi hardly two months ago. We recovered a bunch of keys from his possession that include those to the basement,” Anwar said.
The recovered persons will be handed over to their parents after investigations and legal formalities are completed.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 13th, 2011.
The police moved into the Afghan Camp on Monday night near Sohrab Goth to recover around 45 persons who were kept chained-up in a basement of a seminary.
The Gadap Town police superintendent Rao Anwar, while talking toThe Express Tribune, said, “Those recovered are aged between 12 and 50 years and are mainly of Pakhtun ethnicity.” The SP added that those kept in the basement were students who were subjected to torture by the administration of the seminary. “A few drug addicts and mentally challenged persons were also among those who were recovered,” Anwar said.
“It seems that the administration was running a sort of religious school-cum-rehabilitation-centre and were receiving considerable sums of money from parents of those kept in for that purpose,” SP Anwar added.
According to the police, the administrator of the seminary, Mufti Dawood, fled during the raid. However, the police apprehended his subordinate Qari Muhammad Usman along with two watchmen from the site. “Usman is a resident of Battagram district in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) and arrived in Karachi hardly two months ago. We recovered a bunch of keys from his possession that include those to the basement,” Anwar said.
The recovered persons will be handed over to their parents after investigations and legal formalities are completed.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 13th, 2011.