HARIPUR, Oct 5: A religious scholar and his six guards, arrested on the charge of illegally detaining over 100 people, including British nationals, have been remanded in police custody for five days.

Maulana Ilyas Qadri and the six guards of his private jail, Ghulam Kibriya, Shaukat Rehman, Fakhar Zaman, Farman Khan, Mazar Ali and Javed were produced before the court of Additional District and Sessions Judge, Hafiz Naseem Akbar, On Thursday.

The Haripur police unearthed the private jail in village Badhana, recovering 113 people, including seven British nationals - all chained and fettered.

Testifying before the court, the recovered people said that their families had admitted them to a detoxification centre, called Idara-e-Tark-e-Munashiaat, which turned out to be a detention centre for them. They said that the centre was being run by Maulana Ilyas Qadri and his six guards, and their families were paying them in the range of Rs5,000 to 45,000 per month in the name of treatment cost.

They said that the Maulana and his guards used to torture them physically and mentally, besides sexually abusing the younger-ones.

Looking frail with grown-up hair and nails and wearing dirty clothes, the recovered people told police that they were made to defecate and urinate in the open.

“We were subjected to the worst type of cruelty by Maulana Qadri and his men,” said Raja Arshad, a British national, whose father had migrated to London decades back.

Narrating his ordeal, another British national Raja Azhar said: “Maulana Qadri, who is also called Hazrat Sahib, would keep us chained all the time and give us just one meal a day.”

Heroin addict Shahzad, also a British national, said Maulana Qadri would treat him as his slave. He said that his family was paying Rs45,000 per month as treatment cost, but he was never ever given any medicines. He said that the detainees were deprived of proper food, clothing and sanitation facilities.

He said that whenever they tried to inform their families about the inhuman treatment meted out to them at the centre, Maulana Qadri and his guards would punish them even severely.

A case under sections 342, 506, 511, 377 of the Pakistan Penal Code, read with section 12 of the Offence of Zina (Enforcement of Hudood) Ordinance and section 7 of the Anti terrorism Act, has been registered against the accused persons. The police had sealed the detention centre.