Police on Wednesday recovered 26 minor girl students of a Karachi seminary who had been handed over to a family by a teacher and a supervisor of the madrassah over non-payment of a debt.
[contentblock id=1 img=adsense.png]
Acting on a complaint filed by residents in the area where the girls were kept, police raided a house in Liaquatabad C-1 area and found the young girls inside.
According to ASI Tanveer, the girls who hail from Bajaur tribal region could not speak or understand Urdu. The seminary handed the girls over to the family when the family was unable to pay off a loan it had taken from the madrassah.
[contentblock id=2 img=gcb.png]
As repayment of the loan, the seminary had asked the family to take charge of the young girls’ welfare. A woman from the family added that a female teacher from the seminary along with a supervisor came to their house and handed over the girls for safekeeping on the pretext that it would add pressure to repay the loan.
Police officials said that the seminary owner in her statement had said that she regularly brought in children from Bajaur to educate them in her madrassah in Karachi’s Jamshed Quarters area. She further said that after receiving education the girls returned to Bajaur where they imparted training to others.
[contentblock id=3 img=adsense.png]
The owner added that she also arranged marriages of poor girls in the tribal region. Police sources tried to downplay the incident and said that the affair appeared to be a petty dispute over a financial transaction since the seminary owners’ son was on good terms with the husband of the debtor. -dawn
