07 March 2004	Sunday	15 Muharram 1425

KARACHI, March 6: Two boys were sent back to the Edhi Home by the Overseas Pakistanis' Foundation (OPF) on Saturday as the officials were not satisfied with the documents presented by a person who thought that one of the children might be his son and who had been sent to United Arab Emirates to be a camel-kid.

The children - Qamar Bakhsh, 10, and his brother Mohammad Saleem, 8, - had been sent by the Pakistani embassy in Abu Dhabi, UAE, to Karachi after they were identified as camel-kids. They arrived from the UAE on Sept 18 and were received by the OPF.

Since then the OPF had been trying to locate their parents. In the meantime, the boys were kept at the Edhi Home.

The OPF, after failing to locate the parents, had put up advertisements in some newspapers in southern Punjab, from where most of the children are sent to the UAE to be used as jockeys in camel races. The advertisements were noticed by the Lahore High Court, which ordered the police to find the parents.

A few days back, the OPF received information from Punjab that the parents of at least one of the boys would be coming to the OPF Karachi on Saturday morning. A resident of Khanpur in southern Punjab, Mr Sultan, accompanied by Khanpur ASI Subah Sadiq, came to the OPF on Saturday.

Mr Sultan had given one of his sons, Ashraf, four years ago to an acquaintance, Imamuddin, who used to send children to the UAE. Both the brothers, Qamar Bakhsh and Mohammad Saleem, on meeting Mr Sultan said he was not their father.

Mr Sultan, on the other hand, said he had not seen his son for the last four years ago and so he could not recognize him. He, however, recalled that there was a burn mark on his son's chest.

The OPF representative, Mushtaq Ahmad, said that since there was no burn mark on the chests of the children and the boys also did not recognize Mr Sultan, they could not be given in his custody. The children were later returned to the Edhi Home, where they would stay until their parents were located.

The two boys, talking to Dawn, said they had gone to the UAE with their parents - Jameel and Zaineb Ahmed. The parents lived with the children for a few days before returning to Pakistan.

The two children had been riding camels during races and both had sustained many injuries. Many other camel kids lived in an enclosure with them in the UAE, they recalled.