HARIPUR, Oct 4: Raiding a private jail run by a cleric in a village near here, police have freed 113 people, seven of them British nationals of Pakistani origin. Many of them were young men and boys.

Maulana Ilyas Qadri, who was running the private jail, and his six guards were also arrested in the raid carried out on late Monday night.

District Police Officer Abdul Rasheed Khan said that a police party, acting on a complaint lodged by Shahid Waseem of Chakwal and Majid Mehmood of Gujjar Khan, raided the jail in Badhana village, along the Tarbela Lake, and freed the 113 people from illegal detention.

All of them were fettered and appeared severely malnourished. They were treated in an inhuman manner by the cleric and guards of the jail, the DPO told newsmen on Wednesday.

Cases have been registered under sections 342/506 PPC, 337/12 Hudood Ordinance, 511 PPC and the Suppression of Terrorist Act against the Maulana and his six guards — Ghulam Kibriya, Shaukat Rehman, Fakhar Zaman, Farman Khan, Javed and Mazar Ali.

The complainants who had escaped from the jail said they were tortured and kept fettered. “They would beat us with clubs whenever someone tried to escape or object to the treatment meted out to them,” they said. They alleged that the guards also sexually abused them and children.

All the freed inmates were brought to Haripur district courts where eight boys Ghani, Sarfraz, Najeebullah, Adeel, Ehsan Ali, Mohammad Hanif, Zeshana and Abdul Ahad — aged between 12 and 18 years — recorded their statements before Civil Judge Hina Khan.