Chained madrassa students set free

Late on Monday, officers raided the Zakariya madrassa, in the Sohrab Goth neighbourhood on the outskirts of Karachi, Pakistan’s commercial hub. They are now investigating whether the establishment had any links to violent militant groups, which often recruit from hardline religious schools.

Video footage taken after the raid showed men in chains and the grubby basement room where they were held, along with bedding.

Most of the men showed signs of severe torture, and had developed wounds from the chains, police said.

At least two staff members were arrested, although the leader of the facility reportedly escaped.

Pakistan’s interior ministry has ordered an investigation. Interior minister Rehman Malik said: “Those 50 boys were kept in an environment like animals.”

Many of the students – who varied in age from 12 to 45 – were still in chains while shown on television.

“I was there for 30 days and I did not seen the sky or the sun even once,” Zainullah Khan, 21, said at a police station where the students were questioned and then released to their relatives.

“I was whipped with a rubber belt and forced to beg for food.”

Another student, Mohi-ud-Din, said: “I was kept in the basement for the past month and was kept in chains. They also tortured me severely during this period. I was beaten with sticks.”

Senior police official Rao Anwar said many of those rescued were drug addicts who had been brought to the seminary for treatment.

He said: “These people were not taken to the madrassa forcefully. In fact, the parents of many of them had themselves got their children admitted there.

“Some of them are drug addicts, and others involved in other crimes, and they were tortured and kept in chains so that they did not run away.”

A police officer said that children as young as eight were also taking regular Islamic instruction at the seminary. He said they too were sometimes chained, if they were disobedient.

A man who identified himself as Abdullah told local television that he had brought his 35-year-old brother, a drug addict, to the madrassa for rehabilitation.

He said: “The chains are not a problem. They are needed because without them heroin addicts run away.”

There is little or no state help for drug addicts in Pakistan, and other seminaries in the country offer similar treatment. Addicts and some patients with mental health issues are also chained at institutions around the country.

Across Pakistan there are thousands of madrassas, some of which also offer free board and lodging. Many people are too poor to afford non-religious schools or feel that state institutions are inadequate, so they send their children to madrassas, where they memorise the Koran, learn Arabic and study the traditions of Islam.

Government statistics suggest there are more than 15,000 such schools in the country, educating about two million students.

Some of the more extreme schools churn out fighters and suicide bombers for militant groups including the Taleban and al-Qaeda.

One man was disappointed with the raid, because he said the madrassa had been rehabilitating his drug addict son.

Abdul Hafeez said: “I wish my son could have stayed another four months.”

Several parents – who paid the seminary the equivalent of about £100 to take their children – also protested about the raid at a local police station. Some believed the harsh regime would aid drug rehabilitation.

One told a TV interviewer: “I brought my grown-up son here because he is a drug addict and he was making my life miserable. I don’t want to take him back.”