KARACHI: Police lodged on Thursday a case against three people, one of them a woman organiser of a madressah, for keeping more than 35 girls in ‘wrongful confinement’.

The girls aged between five and 11 were recovered from three houses in different areas of the city, but investigators would not share details of the matter, despite being approached by the Federal Investigation Agency to take up the case if anything related to human trafficking was found.

The Super Market police lodged the FIR under Sections 342 (wrongful confinement) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code against Hameeda Khatoon, Ayub Siddiqi and Mohammad Imran. The three have already been arrested.

“Actually, it is a monetary dispute between two parties and we nominated the people from both sides,” said the sub-divisional police officer, DSP Ejazuddin. “The accused will be produced before a court on Friday. We will also seek the court’s guidelines to pursue the case or incorporate more sections against them.”

On Wednesday morning, police had recovered 26 girls from a two-room house in Liaquatabad’s C-A Area. The girls were from Bajaur Agency.

Later, another seven girls were recovered from a house in Jamshed Town and three from a flat in Bhitaiabad, Korangi.

The girls recovered from the house in the C-A Area were said to have lived there for two days with a woman, who identified herself as Gul Khanum.

According to police, the girls had been sent by their parents to a madressah in Karachi from Bajaur Agency about four months ago. The owner of the house allegedly owed the madressah around Rs350,000. The girls were moved by the madressah management to the house in order to take its possession if the owner did not pay up the money.

The girls are still going through trauma with no immediate relief in sight. As a result, other law-enforcement agencies are also taking interest in the case, suspecting something fishy.

“We have gathered initial details,” said FIA Karachi Director Shahid Hayat Khan.

Published in Dawn, November 28th, 2014