(Image source: BBC)

BY JING LIU

ANCHOR MEGAN MURPHY

You're watching multisource global video news analysis from Newsy.

Pakistani police say they’ve rescued more than 50 children who were tortured and confined to the basement of a seminary school. CNN has details.

“Just an awful seen in Karachi, Pakistan. Roughly 70 individuals, some of them teenagers, some as young as 8-years-old, locked up, chained up, living behind bars in dreadful conditions. Pakistani police say they found these captives in a place that's part a religious school and part drug rehabilitation center.”
 

BBC reports on the misery the children experienced at the school.
 
“A police say the students were captained in conditions like animals. ... for instance, sometimes they beg for food and simply were given a small amount of water and bread to survive. ... he did not see the sun and did not see the sky. ... they were sent to join the jihad. And that if they try to get away, they would be subjected,and … to 200 lashes.”

Many parents sent their children to the school to help them recover from drug addiction. Even though the harsh conditions have been brought to light-- Al Jazeera reports-- many parents want their kids to stay.

“No, I have not come to protect them. They would start stealing and robbing, and police will come to riding our houses.”
 
Some students who were rescued claim they were being trained to join militant groups. According to the Sydney Morning Herald-- the use of radical schools as training camps is not a new problem.
 
“Religious seminaries, attached to mosques, are the only schools available to many of the poorest children. About 2 million boys are educated in Pakistan's 15,000 religious schools. … Many have been linked to extremist groups, such as the Taliban, and funnel impressionable boys to militant camps in the tribal areas.”

According to Al Jazeera- there is little to no help available in Pakistan for drug addicts and those with mental illnesses.