Qari Muhammad Usman, the sole arrestee of Monday’s madrassa raid that freed more than 60 students imprisoned in the basement of a Karachi seminary, confessed to Pakistan Today on Tuesday that the administration bound the students with chains but said the parents of the students acquiesced to the brutal treatment of their children in order to rid them of drug addiction. “The families will corroborate my statement,” said Usman. The madrassa’s administration was “delivering religious education” to the students and charging only those who were able to pay and several students were “getting education” for free, he added. He said only the mufti knew why the students were kept in captivity, adding that the parents voluntarily left their children and relatives there to “rid them of evil spirits”. He said only drug addicts and mentally challenged students were tied because they caused disturbance and created problems in the madrassas. “We were charging Rs 6,000 in fees from the parents of such students,” he added. More than 35 families have contacted police for news of their children recovered from the madrassa, while the rest of the students are waiting for their relatives in police custody. “My brother was addicted to glue-sniffing and we failed to control him, so we contacted the administration of the madrassa and they admitted my brother,” said Hijrat Khan, the brother of one of the recovered students. “We also permitted the administration to use any tactics to keep my brother from using,” he added. “There were more than 60 students being kept in the basement who were tortured by the administration,” Superintendent of Police (SP) Rao Anwar told Pakistan Today. He said those recovered included very young children and some adults, mainly of Pakhtun ethnicity. A few drug addicts and mentally challenged people were also among those who were recovered, he added. Police registered a first information report (FIR) (No 273/2011) under Sections 342, 344, 506-B and 337-1/34 of the Pakistan Penal Code against four accused, namely Qari Dawood, Qari Abdullah, Qari Qudratullah and Qari Fakhruddin in the Gulshan-e-Mayman Police Station. All the administrators included in the FIR are absconders, and police have so far arrested only Qari Usman.
