New Delhi : A latest intelligence report based on a year-long survey has given a clean chit to the madrasas saying majority of them are not involved in any terror-training activities to dub all of them as nurseries of ‘Jihad’.
It, however, notes that the madrasas with staff from other countries like Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia and Malaysia are a potential hunting ground for terror groups as it is only in such institutions that the young Muslim children are indoctrinated in ‘Jihad’.
“There is no hate propaganda if teachers are the Indian Muslims as there is no ‘Jihad’ indoctrination in such madrasas, the report said. In the light of this report, the Home Ministry has ordered a survey of the Madrasas having teachers from Bangladesh in the border states of West Bengal, Bihar, Assam and Uttar Pradesh to find if any indoctrination is taking place. The ministry, however, decided not to paint all madrasas with the same brush after this report.
The ministry sources said the survey was felt necessary since there may be many foreign teachers with many madrasas claiming to be the Indian citizens with forged identity documents. That is why the intelligence agencies have been asked to zero down on the states with international borders to check whether foreign nationals are teaching there, they said.
They said the survey was felt necessary in view of a probe revealing that almost all teachers at the madrasas in West Bengal”s Burdwan district were the Bangladeshi nationals. Burdwan witnessed killing of two persons in an explosion on October 2. The teachers, allegedly affiliated to the banned terror group Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen of Bangladesh, were indoctrinating the young students and luring them into the “Jehadi” ideology, the sources said.
Even while noting that the madrasas run by the Indian teachers are not a security threat, the report points out that these teachers resist any other kind of education, leading to unemployment as their focus is more on the religious teachings. It said the madrasas are mushrooming particularly in the Muslim areas where there are no good schools and mostly poor people send their children for studies there.
“These madrasas are mostly free for students who are not just given Islamic education but also provided with free lodging and food, besides some cash to, but clothes if there are extremely poor. There is a need to encourage these madrasas to incorporate element of modern curriculum to help their students in terms of employment and life skills,” the report said.
