As the process for shifting minor girls from Karachi to Bajaur kicks off, Bajaur’s assistant political agent assures girls will be given only to their families while an agency cleric will face jirga for sending girls to Karachi
With details of their parentage still shrouded in mystery, most of the 36 minor female seminary students are all set to be handed over to the political administration of Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA)’s Bajaur Agency.
Sindh Social Welfare Department Thursday took the girls into its custody and accommodated them in a shelter home located in Karachi’s Gulshan-e-Iqbal Town.
“They have been shifted (from Gulberg SSP office) to the provincial government’s shelter home,” said Muhammad Idrees, a deputy director at Social Welfare Department. The 14 girls recently kidnapped from Lahore have also been shifted to the shelter, he said.
Al-Banaat Darul Atfaal is located in Shantinagar neighbourhood of the city, about 1,547 kilometres away from the girls’ hometown.
“The kids have been accommodated safely in the social welfare institution,” DIG Central Captain (r) Tahir Naveed told Pakistan Today.
According to Social Welfare Minister Rubina Qaimkhani spokesman Bilawal, one of the 36 girls was handed over to her father, Mukhtiayar of Rahimyar Khan, last night.
DIG Naveed said that the provincial government had decided to hand the minors, aged between five and 12 years, to their parents through the agency’s political administration. “A political agent is a responsible entity who can be given custody of the kids,” the police officer said.
Bajaur Agency’s assistant political agent Muhammad Fayaz Sherpao is in the city to take the minors, who Fayaz said were sent by their families for Islamic learning in the seminary, back to their “real” parents.
Talking to Pakistan Today, the political agent said that the kids would not be handed over to their relatives, “not even to their brothers”.
While six to seven families of the children were living in Karachi the rest, he said, were residing in the tribal agency.
However, Bilawal, the minister’s spokesman, said that only one of the Karachi-based families responded positively. “Those left unclaimed would be owned by the government,” he said.
Fayaz, however, said that investigation was underway to authenticate claims of the families from the multiethnic city.
Asked if his administration would take to task those responsible for the mishandling of children, Fayaz responded in affirmative.
Maulana Samiullah, a cleric from Bajaur Agency, he said, would be facing a grand jirga to be convened by the political agent as soon as he reached back to the agency. “Said to be the relative of Hameeda Begum, he has sent most of these girls here,” Fayaz said.
Hameeda and her debtor Ayub Siddiqui are already behind the bars for putting the lives of the minors to risk for a meagre sum of Rs 150,000, said Tahira, wife of Ayub.
“My husband was working at the madrassa and owed Rs 400,000 to her (Hameeda). Having paid Rs 250,000 we offered her to clear the remaining Rs 150,000 in instalments of Rs 25,000. But she refused to accept this and left the kids to pressure us,” said Tahira.
