A dungeon holding several people, including two women and three children, was discovered inside a Pakistani lawmaker’s home on Sunday, according to police.
Abdul Rehman Khetran, a legislator for the conservative religious party Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam and former provincial minister, was arrested after the discovery was made inside his home in the southwestern Pakistani province of Baluchistan, an area riddled with smugglers and drug lords, reports Reuters.
Authorities freed the prisoners and also arrested Khetran’s son and six private guards, Barkhan district police chief Abdul Ghafoor Marri said, per Reuters. The region’s Anti Terrorist Force was also involved in the raid and seized weapons from the premises, Pakistani news outlet Dawn.com reports.
Police happened upon the prisoners, some of whom were chained up, during a raid on Khetran’s home, conducted after his private guards attacked police and stole their weapons at a checkpoint earlier on Sunday, according to Reuters.
"We will not spare anyone targeting the police," an officer who declined to be named told Dawn.com.
Khetran, however, claims the raid and subsequent arrests were politically motivated.
In 2011, an underground dungeon was discovered in a Pakistani madrassah, a school used for teaching Islam, where teenage delinquents were being beaten and abused. Police raided the school and discovered more than 60 boys living in “unimaginable misery” and chained together in threes, according to The Telegraph.
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