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| July 26, 2006 | Wednesday | Jumadi-ul-Sani 29, 1427 |
Camel jockey’s tale for tears
RAHIM YAR KHAN, July 25: A young camel jockey has been rendered disabled for life owing to alleged torture by none other than his dear one during his stay in the UAE.
Fifteen-year-old Hameed, son of Muhammad Musa Chachar (resident of Chak 93-P, Basti Chacharan in Rahim Yar Khan) was sent to the UAE (Al Ain) in 1997 when he was only seven.
His father told Dawn that in 1997 a woman from Karachi came to his house and told him that she would send his child to the UAE where he would get a pay of 500 dirhams a month.
“Being living in abject poverty, we readily agreed to the proposal and handed over Hameed to that woman even without any investigation. Many other children of our basti were sent to the UAE by that woman who after a week informed my brother-in-law in the UAE about his son’s arrival and made camel jockey at the farm of Salam bin Behnoon.”
He said after four years (in 2001), the son of his sister-in-law Lateef Chachar was also called to the UAE by Salam bin Behnoon on a two-year visa. Lateef was appointed to look after the camels along with Hameed. They both worked together at the same place for one and-a-half years.
One day Hameed got ill and he told Lateef that he could not perform his duty. Lateef called his sponsor Salam who asked the former not to force his cousin to work. Lateef, however, threatened Hameed with dire consequences for leaving the work.
The father quoted Hameed as saying that when he joined the work after recovery after three days, Lateef gave him a sound thrashing and banged him against an iron rod due to which he got his leg injured. Lateef, he said, this time asked his son not to tell anyone about the incident or face similar consequences. “If anyone asks about the wound, tell him that I fell from a camel.”
Hameed further said when he lost his senses in the evening, a Pakistani supervisor of the camel farm (Uzba) Bashir sent him to Abu Dhabi to his uncle Talib Husain who admitted him to hospital. The hospital staff, however, sent Talib to jail on the charge of injuring the child. But he was released after 15 days on the statement of Hameed that he was injured by Lateef.
When the UAE police raided the camel farm in Al Ain to arrest Lateef, he fled from the camel farm and went to Muscat, Sultanate of Oman. Hameed added that he remained admitted to the hospital for six months and his legs were operated seven times. After recovering, Hameed stayed at the institute of Juvenile Police with other camel jockey children for one month.
In February 2006, he was sent back to Pakistan where he was taken to the Child Protection Welfare Bureau for three days from where his father Muhammad Musa took him back home.
Now the victim says he cannot walk properly and can hardly ride a bicycle. Musa said 25 other camel jockey children of their village had come back. The CPWB is building a child friendly school in our Basti where my son will get education with other children.
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