Caravan Daily Desk

NEW DELHI — The BJP-led government of Rajasthan has cancelled registrations of 732 madrassas in the state.

The government controlled Rajasthan Madrassa Board said that most of them were not functioning or had inadequate number of students.

Muslim organizations have strongly condemned the action as unfair and a clear violation of Government’s own guidelines. They said that many of these madrassas were fully functional and had been providing education to children from poor and financially disadvantaged backgrounds.

The Madrassa Board, on the other hand, claimed that many of the madrassas were fake and did not even exist. It insists that action has been taken on the basis of the information collected through its Data Catcher program and had identified 902 madrassas in many of which number of pupils were not more than 20.

These suspended madrassas had been issued warnings to take measures to attract necessary number of students within a specified period or face cancellation of registration. This had a positive impact and many madrassas improved their conditions, said the Madrassa Board.

The Madrassa Board claimed that when District Minority Welfare Officers, through Data Cather Program, collected information about madrassas they found out that many of the madrassas either did not exist or were non-functional.

As an example of how haphazardly and blindly has this action been taken, Urdu daily Rashtriya Sahara reported that one of the madrassas whose registration has been cancelled is one in Mohalla Mahavatan that has 400 registered students and the madrassa as a result runs two shifts.