AYUB Siddiqi’s home is located in a long narrow lane of uneven blocks of apartments in the C-Area of Liaquatabad. His home has been in the news after 26 young girls were recovered from there some days ago.

As soon as I entered the street, a woman said: “The girls were brought here on Monday [Nov 24]. But by Wednesday, people in the neighbourhood started asking questions. Some of them fed the girls as they looked famished.”

Others in the neighbourhood were not that forthcoming and pointed towards Ayub’s home for further information.

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Granted bail a day ago, Ayub was not at home but his wife Tahira reluctantly agreed to speak. Blocking the small doorway to her home, she said she had no idea how a woman landed at her place with 26 young girls.

“My husband worked at the madressah in Jamshed Quarters and had taken Rs350,000 as a loan from Imran, the son of the owner Hameeda Khatoon, to start his own business. We couldn’t pay the entire sum at once, so it was decided we would pay Rs25,000 every month. It went on for four months. But last month we couldn’t pay the required sum,” she said, adding that her husband was still at the Liaquatabad Supermarket police station.

Ayub’s one-room apartment has two single beds in the main living area and an attached bath with a washing machine next to it. Tahira said they had a daughter who got married a year ago. Apart from that she refused to divulge much. The neighbours too seemed weary to talk of what they referred to as a “high-profile” case.

People are also fearful because of the large number of politicians and media personnel that descended the day the home was found on a tip-off by the area police. Apart from the 26 girls, seven other girls discovered in a house in Fatima Jinnah Colony in Jamshed Quarters were reunited with their parents.

Speculation is rife that the case involves human trafficking, but Gul Mohammad Momand, the head of the Landhi-based welfare organisation Anjuman-i-Naujwanan-i-Bajaur, denied this impression, saying, “What’s really wrong about the case is that the young girls were dumped at another man’s place because of a petty issue over money. But when people question the presence of such young girls in a madressah, the answer is the operation and strife in Bajaur.”

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He went on: “Sending children to Karachi is a norm that started six years back when the armed forces clashed with militants in Bajaur. People were forced to send their children, boys and girls, to get religious education and food and clothing at madressahs.”

Momand said that many people have relatives, who are daily wage earners themselves in Karachi, and who were also present the day the girls were found. “But due to the presence of political officials and police, they were not allowed to speak up, as they were considered potential kidnappers.”

Speaking about Hameeda Khatoon, who owns the madressah in Jamshed Quarters and another in Korangi, Momand said that she is well known and a “resident of Dir and neighbour of Jamaat-i-Islami emir Sirajul Haq”.

Across the road from the C-Area neighbourhood, the SHO of the Liaquatabad Supermarket police station, Hasan Haider, reiterated that according to initial investigations it is not a case of “human trafficking but one regarding a delayed payment of debt”.

Speaking about the dealing between Ayub and Imran, he said the former worked in the clearing and forwarding department of the private madressah located in Jamshed Quarters. “Ayub had taken a loan of Rs450,000 from Imran and didn’t pay it back in time. Imran’s mother, Hameeda Khatoon, who has been running the business for the past four years, got angry on learning about the transfer of funds without her knowledge, and took the 26 girls to his home. Ayub is not well-off as is evident from the state of his home. The case was highlighted only because political parties got involved. Otherwise there’s not much to add to it,” he added.

The madressah from where the loan was taken is a two-storey bungalow in Jamshed Quarters. The main door was locked and the curtains drawn as a watchman from the adjacent building said it was a “religious school running for the past four years”.

A Jamia Binoria spokesman, Mohammad Jawad, said the real issue was the non-registration of madressahs across the city. Speaking on the phone, he said, “This was a private madressah inside a house no one knew about. It is an unregistered madressah. But what’s surprising is how the issue was highlighted differently for point-scoring and taken up by people without questioning the purpose behind it.”

However, Rauf Siddiqi, an MQM politician, said that the story doesn’t add up. “Whoever is calling it a matter of a debt gone wrong, does not understand the nature of such issues. I had my doubts from day one and will continue to question why the girls were dumped in that house in the first place.”

Published in Dawn, December 2nd, 2014