India Today NE impact: Madrassa board decides to hold meeting

Amid Assam’s ongoing crackdown against radical terror elements, India Today NE focussed its lens on the mushrooming of Madrassas in the state. An investigation found that over 1,000 private Madrassas are running in Assam. A few days after the report was published by India Today NE, the All Assam Tanzim Madaris Madrassa Board convened a meeting with its president Badruddin Ajmal at the helm to ensure that stringent measures are taken to ensure Madrassas do not become the hotbed of radical acts in the region.

Moulana Abdul Quadir Quasimi, the general secretary of the board, admitted that the India Today NE report was at least a part of the reason why leaders of the Board met today.

"Due to the kind of discussions that are taking place and also because of the conversation we had with you, we felt the need to meet to discuss some measures," Quasimi told India Today NE on Monday (August 8).

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Today’s meeting, Quasimi said, was meant to review some security measures that are being implemented in the Madrassas to check radical elements.

"On behalf of the Board, we have urged the Madrassas not to allow strangers to teach the students," he said adding ‘forget teaching, they can not even stay for a night.’

Although these rules have been there for a while, today’s meeting was meant to ensure that they are being followed in the Madrassas, said Quasimi.

Meanwhile, Quasimi has ‘appreciated’ Assam’s Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma for his remark that 99.9% of Muslims are not involved in any kind of radical activity.

Biswa Sarma has also requested the Madrassas to ensure that strangers do not get to teach the students and keep an eye on the Imams.

The Board, Quasimi says, has taken cognizance of the report. 

Earlier, India Today NE talked to Quasimi after Muslim cleric Mustafa Mufti’s arrest for his alleged radicalization of students. Mufti’s Madrassa, in Middle Assam’s Morigaon district, has been bulldozed by officials.

Mufti, who had been working part-time in a madrassa accredited by the board, has been linked to the global terror outfits Al-Qaeda in Indian Sub-continent (AQIS) and Bangladesh-based Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT).

All Assam Tanzim Madaris Qawmiya, which is headquartered at Nilbagan in Hojai district, runs some 1,032 Madrassas, a bulk of which are in Assam (a few Madrassas in North Bengal also fall under its regulation).

Set up in 1955, the all All Assam Tanzim Madaris Qawmiya was initially known as Madaris-E Quawmiya with the objective of not only setting up madrasas but also streamlining various segments of education and administrative works. In 1982, it got its current name.