More than 100 rescued from private jail
Law enforcement agencies on Sunday night swooped down a private jail of some influential landlords and freed more than 100 people trapped as bonded labour for many years.
According to officials, a heavy contingent of police raided a brick kiln in the suburban area of Hafizabad on the instruction of the CCPO Gujranwala. The raid was based on the information provided by a 16-year-old boy, Irfan, who had escaped from the private jail four years back.
The police also arrested three persons – Saifullah, Mushtaq Ahmed and Muhammad Asif – who are allegedly responsible for keeping these people in subhuman conditions.
The freed people, including men, women and children, later revealed that they had to work on the kiln and on fields of the accused and they were neither properly paid nor provided sufficient food. They said their captors had killed six people who had attempted to escape from their clutches. They revealed that some of the prisoners were also subjected to brutal torture, which crippled them. They said the blame for this torture was usually put on other prisoners and the culprits managed to escape punishment with the connivance of police.
They alleged that the landlords also raped their women. The boy, Irfan, also corroborated the account and said that his own father and two uncles had been tortured to death by the accused.
Taking notice, Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has sought a report on the incident. He has ordered that a case against the persons operating the private jail be registered.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 21st, 2014.
COMMENTS (9)
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@bash gul:
Do you have any proof of it that they are PML(N-azi) landlords? If you don't then please refrain from insensitive comments.
How can this happen and why it took four years after police got tipped of to break into this cell? It makes me wonder how many more are out there? I hope those responsible for it are dealt with an iron hand.
The criminal perpetrators should be given the death penalty.
Well done but publicity should not have been given about that poor hapless informer . I dread to think about his future now .
Make sure you catch only the poor jail guards for the crime but please keep the "some landlord"(who's identity is hidden) out of this. After all it was the guys who locked them at night and not the Landlord who orders they were following, who commited the crime.
Is this the only private jail or are there more? The abduction is common if you fail to pay the lender and escape. The powerful lender finds you and puts you in his lock up under bonded labour at a daily wage equalent to or less than the avg wage in that area. You serve to pay him. To top it up he uses interest rate which is 4x times higher than the bank rate. Since the access to micro finance is not easy for everyone they are trapped. Solution is awareness through micro finance.
Nothing substantial is going to happen unless feudalism is eliminated.
Government should take strict action.