PESHAWAR, Oct 7: The Peshawar district and sessions judge, Shahjehan Khan Akhundzada, on Friday set at liberty 17 bonded labourers, including women and children, allegedly kept in illegal confinement by a brick kiln owner.

The judge directed the owner of the kiln, situated at Urmer area, to move a civil court for settling his monetary dispute with the detainees.

“No person has any legal right to keep any other person in confinement for recovering his money,” the judge observed.

Mr Akhundzada asked the owner that why he had kept the 17 people in confinement. The owner replied that they had borrowed money from him and were reluctant to return it back. He added that he had not kept them in confinement rather he asked them to pay his money back.

The court accepted a habeas corpus petition filed by Sher Zaman Khan under section 491 of Criminal Procedure Code.

He said that he was a labourer at a brick kiln in Urmer area, in the outskirts of Peshawar.

He said that he did not want to continue work at the said kiln, but the owner had been forcing him to continue it.

Sher Zaman said that the owner had now kept 17 persons of his family including women and children in illegal confinement.

He added that the detainee had been engaged in bonded labour and the owner was reluctant to release them.

Over the said petition the sessions judge had directed the Urmer police to produce the detainees. All the detainees mostly women and children were produced before the court on Friday.

The court observed that keeping a person in confinement was illegal and unconstitutional.