Forty-five students, among them young children, were discovered held in chains in a basement when police raided an Islamic seminary in Pakistan last night.
The male students, some said to be as young as 12 but appearing even younger, were found in what amounted to a dungeon at the Madrassa Zakarya in the Sohrab Goth district of Karachi.
Led barefoot from their prison, captives told officers they had suffered regular beatings and been hung upside down as a form of punishment.
------------------------------------
Others said they had been visited by Taliban fighters and that 10 of their fellow students had disappeared in recent months.
One boy said that visiting Taliban members had told them to 'prepare for battle'. Some Pakistani madrassas have long been suspected of grooming Islamic militants.
-----------------------
'We were kept in chains and hung upside down and beaten with sticks if we didn't comply. We were told that we would be given training to fight in Afghanistan,' one boy said.
Another told how Taliban fighters had visited the seminary, led prayers and told them to prepare for battle.
------------------------------
According to the Press Trust of India, most of the captive students had been brought to Karachi from remote parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhawa province, a hotbed of Taliban activities.
'What we have learnt is that the parents used to pay the seminary for the education of their children who were sent to Karachi to get religious education,' a police official told the agency.
