LAHORE: Police took a teenage boy in protective custody on Monday after he fled a seminary with a heavy steel chain tied to his feet.
Fifteen-year-old Umair Ramzan told police that he had been in chains at the Madressah Faizul Quran in Waheed Park of Amar Sidhu village.
According to the first information report lodged by ASI Liaqat Ali, of Factory Area police, under section 342 (punishment for wrongful confinement) of the Pakistan Penal Code, he and his team were patrolling Ghazi Road, Shaukat Town, when a Rescue 15 call alerted them that a boy with a chain tied to his feet was present at a hair-dresser’s shop near Bodhi graveyard.
The caller, Sajjad Ahmad, handed over the child to police who identified himself as Umair Ramzan, son of Muhammad Ramzan, of Amar Sidhu village.The boy told police that he had escaped from the Faizul Quran Madressah where he had been in chains for the last six days.
Also the complainant in the case, the ASI stated the boy was kept in illegal detention by an unidentified person. Police seized the chain and a lock as evidence.
Umair, who has an unusual eye defect, told Dawn he had managed to escape from the seminary pretending that he was going to washroom. Once out of the seminary, he kept walking when two people approached him asking about the chain.
“I gave the men the phone number of my father,” he told police. The men, however, alerted police and reporters.
Umair, who visibly looked frightened, said his father Ramzan had asked his teacher Qari Muhammad Waseem Tabasum a few days ago to chain him so that he could not run away. They both kept him chained for six days despite his requests that he would never leave the madressah. He said his teacher had never beaten him and that his father had asked the teacher to keep him in captivity.
Umair dropped out of school after completing class IV and joined a seminary around three years ago. Soon, he quit this too as his fellow students would taunt him owing to his defected eye and partial baldness.
He said his father got him admitted to another seminary where he studied for more than one and a half years. He quit this place because his tutors, including Qari Nazir, would subject him to torture for skipping classes and not remembering Quran lessons. He said his father had agreed to change the seminary after seeing torture scars on his body.
He said finally he joined Faizul Quran Madressah a few months ago only to become a laughing stock for his fellows.
“I want to go to school; I want to live with my parents,” said Umair who will be produced before a court on Tuesday (today). He said he was never tortured by his parents and siblings at home.
Umair’s father Ramzan, who is a driver, said he had suggested the teacher to detain his son for he would often run away run from the madressah. He said he himself had bought the chain and lock and gave them to Qari Waseem. Ramzan said he did so for the welfare of his son.
Qari Waseem, of Muzaffargarh, who is disabled, said he had joined the seminary one month ago and never beat any pupil. He claimed he initially rejected Ramzan’s idea of chaining Umair, but the madressah nazim told him to do so.
He said Umair was a good student who always memorised Quran lessons but he used to skip classes. A police investigator claimed nobody from the victim’s family was interested in the registration of case which eventually pushed the police to act according to law.