Peshawar - Peshawar High Court (PHC) has directed the government authorities to send back 10 children who had been brought from Afghanistan and admitted at a madrassa in Nowshera district and also ordered arrest of the madrassa management.

The high court bench, headed by Justice Waqar Ahmed Seth, directed the authorities to hand over children to the Afghan Consulate so that they were taken to their homes in Afghanistan. The children had been studying at a madrassa in Akora Khattak area of Nowshera district.

Additional Advocate General Qaiser Ali Shah and representatives of the Afghan Consulate were also present during the hearing of the case.

During hearing, a professor of Dari and Persian Yousaf Hussain was appointed as an interpreter for the 10 children, all aged between seven to 10 years old. The bench was told that Afghan children had been brought to Pakistan via Quetta and later taken to Akora Khattak.

The bench questioned what the intelligence agencies were doing while the children were being taken from Afghanistan to Pakistan without any documents and legal formalities, adding that such children could also be used in suicide bombings.

One Izzatullah told the court that he had brought the children to a madrassa in Pakistan for religious education. However, the court questioned it remains to be seen if the children had been brought with the consent of their parents. The representatives of the Afghan Consulate assured the court to hand the children over to their parents in Afghanistan soon.

It may be mentioned here that the issue of Afghan children surfaced when the children were being taken from one madrassa to another near an Afghan refugee camp in Nowshera, but as the issue turned provocative between the management of the two madrassas, the police intervened in the matter, which ultimately reached the court of law.