HARIPUR, May 24: As a result of a local court order, the police on Thursday handed over the possession of a detoxification centre to its controversial head, Maulana Ilyas Qadri.

The Idara Tark-i-Manashiaat (centre for detoxification) was sealed last year and Maulana Qadri was charged with sexually and physically abusing the centre’s inmates.

The court of Additional District and Sessions Judge Syed Muzamil Khan accepted Maulana Qadri’s application on Wednesday and directed the police to hand the centre over.

Situated on the bank of Tarbela lake near Padhana village, the centre was sealed when Deputy Superintendent Police Abdul Majeed Afridi conducted a midnight raid on October 3, 2006. He recovered 112 chained-up prisoners, most of them under-age children, including eight British nationals who had been brought to the centre for treatment.

The raid was conducted upon the complaint of Shahid Wasim and British national Majid Mehmood, who had been caught by police while trying to escape the centre.

They lodged an FIR with the Khalabat Township police station accusing the cleric of mistreating and keeping all the centre’s inmates in chains, and sexually molesting some of them.

The cleric and his six guards were arrested, and cases were registered under sections 337, 342 and 506 of the Pakistan Penal Code, and section 12 of the Offence of Zina (Enforcement of Hudood) Ordinance, 1979.

Subsequently, the defendant denied the charges and claimed that he was treating the addicts through spiritual means. He claimed that the inmates’ parents had, through written requests on judicial papers, allowed him to employ his treatment methods.

Maulana Qadri and his guards were bailed out by the Abbottabad Circuit Bench of the Peshawar High court.