HYDERABAD: Local people with the help of police got freed a boy who was found in chains in a religious seminary of Tando Mohammad Khan on Friday.

Police have booked his father, elder brother and the seminary in-charge.

Reports from the area said the seminary, Qasimul Uloom Rashidia, was located adjacent to a local FM radio station. Staff from the radio station heard cries of a boy and rushed to the seminary to find a 10-year-old boy identified as Abdul Ghaffar Memon in chains. The child was thereafter freed.

Meanwhile, area people gathered and the incident went viral on social media. According to one report, Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah taking notice of the reports directed Sindh police chief A.D. Khowaja to look into the matter.

Tando Mohammad Khan police also rushed to the spot and took the boy, his father and brother Abdul Jabbar and seminary in-charge Maulvi Sher Mohammad Rind to the police station. Abdul Ghaffar was freed while the three others have been arrested. A case (FIR No. 308/17) under relevant sections of the law has been lodged.

Ghaffar’s brother Abdul Jabbar told local reporters that he had brought his brother to the seminary and got him chained there. The seminary in-charge also claimed that it was the boy’s family who had him chained on the ground that he used to run away from the seminary. He stated that never had any such incident taken place in his seminary, which is said to be associated with a religious political party.

The boy, however, told the reporters that he had been kept there for the past six days in chains. He had to bear with this inhuman condition round the clock and was only unchained when he needed to go to the lavatory.

Around 180 students are residing in the seminary for education and 30 of them are from areas other than Tando Mohammad Khan.

Published in Dawn, October 28th, 2017