LAHORE, Feb 23: As many as 51 people, including women and children, were on Monday produced in the Lahore High Court following their recovery by a court bailiff in a surprise raid conducted on a brick kiln in the outskirts of Gujrat.

The court, comprising Justice Syed Sakhi Husain Bokhari, set the poor people, including 34 children and 13 women, at liberty from an illegal detention at the brick kiln for more than one year.

The court has directed the Gujrat superintendent police to hold an inquiry into the incident and register a criminal case against the kiln owner and other accomplices who were alleged to have criminally assaulted all the women and teenaged girls in detention.

One person, Ikram, was produced in the court with bleeding wounds which he reportedly sustained when he was fired at by the accused people as he tried to escape from the kiln one night before the bailiff's raid.

The unfortunate incident came to the limelight when two people -- Amir and Javed Iqbal -- succeeded in fleeing from the forced labour camp and established a contact with Advocate Arif Gondal on Feb 18. The lawyer filed a habeas corpus on behalf of Javed Iqbal on Feb 19 and the court ordered the appointment of a bailiff to conduct a raid on the brick kiln the same day.

As Advocate Arif Gondal deposed in the court that the detainees came from the poorest section of society and were subjected to inhuman treatment, the court observed that they were equal citizens of Pakistan and nobody could infringe upon their free movement and curb their liberty; they were entitled to chose any profession they liked to adopt.

According to the petitioner, the detainees struck an agreement with brick kiln contractors Haji Mohammad Asghar, Mohammad Asghar and Malik Mohammad Amin about a year ago that they would prepare 1,000 bricks for Rs140 each.

For about three months the contractors honoured the agreement terms but then started intimidating them by paying them less. When the labourers protested about nine months ago, they were subjected to torture and placed in dark cells and armed guards were appointed around the kiln.

The petitioner said that for about nine months, the labourers were provided with a daily allowance of Rs100 and they were forced to work on the brick kiln under armed guards who used to beat them off and on.

The detainees once again demanded the wages which had by now accumulated to Rs95,000. The demand so irked the contractors that they increased vigilance for which they hired notorious people, some of them proclaimed offenders.

These allegedly criminal people subjected all the women, including teenaged girls, to physical assault during the period of one month before they were recovered last week. It so happened invariably, alleged the petitioner, that women returning from the day's work, were taken away to forlorn areas for abuse.

MARRIAGE PARTY: The Lahore High Court on Monday sought a report from the Faisalabad police on the incident in which 14 people of a marriage party, including bridegroom Boota, were arrested lst week.