QUETTA, Aug 17: An eight-year-old Afghan boy was arrested under the Foreign Act and kept as juvenile prisoner in the Quetta district jail.

This was disclosed when a team of ‘Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (Sparc), an NGO, visited the juvenile ward of the prison on Friday.

Jail Superintendent Razzaq Shah told the visitors that Idrees, son of Mehmood, was taken into custody along with his father and elder brother 10 days ago.

He said they were arrested at an Afghan refugee settlement in the city and shifted to the prison after a case was registered against them.

Idrees belongs to a Persian-speaking family.

Provincial Education Minister Tahir Mehmood Khan, former minister Roshan Khurshid Barocha and Saeed Ahmed Khan of the ministry of human rights, who accompanied Hanif Khan Panezai of Sparc, took notice of the child’s imprisonment and termed it a violation of children’s rights.

Eid gifts were distributed among 65 juvenile prisoners on the occasion on behalf of Sparc.

According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, there are about 450,000 Afghan refugees in Balochistan and most live in Quetta, Pishin, Qila Abdullah, Chaman, Loralai, Qila Saifullah, Zhob and Chagai.

A large number of refugees have left camps and moved to permanent settlements. Police frequently raid settlements of Afghan refugees and arrest them under the Foreign Act.