Pakistani police uncover chained rehab patients

[December 13, 2011]  KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) -- Pakistani police say they have discovered drug addicts held in chains at an Islamic seminary that offered rehabilitation services.

Police officer Akram Naeem said Tuesday that the parents of the 60 young men held at the seminary paid it to cure their children, or simply to take them off their hands.

He says some patients were chained after they tried to escape, or if they were caught dealing in drugs.

Policeman Rao Anwar Ahmed says some children as young as 8 were also taking regular Islamic instruction at the seminary in the southern city of Karachi. He says they too were sometimes chained, if they were disobedient.

Pakistan has thousands of unregulated seminaries offering free or cheap education, food and lodging for poor children.

Reports of abuse occasionally surface.

[Associated Press]

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