As part of the UP government’s Special Investigation Team probe for foreign funding, madrasas in the state have been issued with notices to shut down or pay Rs.10,000 per day to continue to function. The UP government claims that these Madrasas are illegal because they lack the proper documents required to be registered with the government and hence will not be recognised as a valid institute.
The state of Uttar Pradesh has over 25,000 functional madrasas of which only 16,513 are recognised by the UP Board of Madrasa Education. Amongst those that have been left unrecognised by the government are some 4000 madrasas that are situated along the Indo-Nepal border in Uttar Pradesh. The staunch right-wing government has accused these madrasas of receiving undocumented foreign aid, a claim which the Muslim community continuously denies.
More than 100 madrasas have been identified as illegal of which at least twelve have been given notices declaring that “Rs 10,000 per day would be charged unless they close immediately”.
The chairman of the UP Board of Madrasa Education, Iftikhar Ahmed Javed told Times of India that the investigations were an infringement on the rights of madrasas. “No one, including the education department, has the right to interfere in madrasa matters. Only the minority department can do it,” Ahmed was quoted as saying.
Qari Zakir Husain, the UP secretary of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Hind, said, “These notices in Muzaffarnagar are meant to target a particular community. Their rule does not apply to Islamic seminaries, schools, or other religious institutions.”
“The madrasas are providing free of cost education to the students, they will not be able to pay the fine of Rs 10,000 per day,” Husain said.
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