KARACHI, Dec 2: A rights group on Sunday claimed to have got 22 bonded labourers freed from a private prison in the outskirts of Karachi. “We have got released 22 people, six of them women and 10 children, from the private jail of a local landlord,” Asad Iqbal Butt, an official of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), told reporters.

He said the peasants had come to Karachi from Tando Adam a year ago in search of a better life.

“They were promised half the profits of every crop by a landlord and his partners, but the promise was never fulfilled,” Mr Butt said.

Chanesar Bheel, 25, one of the peasants, said they had come to Karachi after Mohan, an acquaintance who worked for the landlord and his associate, spoke to him about fortunes he could make in Karachi.

The peasant families were put up near the Jinnai village in Gadap.

“When we arrived at the place there was nothing but a jungle of bushes and plants which we cleared after weeks of hard work and made the land cultivable,” said Khushhal Bheel, another peasant.

Chanesar said the landlord had promised to distribute half of the profits of every crop among the peasants. But he went back on his promise when the crop was harvested. When they asked for money, the landlord and his associates beat them up and harassed their families, he added.

“Three days ago some of us managed to escape from their captivity and went to the Gadap police station to lodge a complaint, but policemen there did not allow us to even enter the premises,” Chanesar said, adding that some people in the area advised them to go to the HRCP office to get their families freed.

“We found the office of the HRCP after hours of hectic efforts and met its officials who gave us food and clothes when we narrated our ordeal,” he said.

A local police officer said the peasants had been freed on Sunday, but no case had been registered against their captors. “The landlord has shown us some agreements with thumb impressions of the peasants, which prove that the peasants were happily living with them,” he said.

Chanesar said their thumb impressions on the agreements had been taken forcibly. “They harassed our children and coerced us to give the impressions,” he alleged.

The HRCP official said that the families would be sent back to Tando Adam because they did not want to live in Karachi after the trauma.