ISLAMABAD: Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan has said that law-enforcement agencies have so far placed 30 religious seminaries in the “suspect” category which have been closed.

The minister said this in an official report on the implementation of the National Action Plan (NAP) against terrorism and extremism.

Two of the “suspect” madaris were from Punjab, 15 from Sindh and 13 from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. No seminary in Balochistan has been placed in this category since the launch of the NAP in December last year.

Although the report does not explain in so many words what is meant by suspected madaris, a senior official involved in the implementation of the NAP said they had some direct or indirect connections with militants or their activities.

According to the report, Sindh is the only province which has taken concrete action and has so far closed 72 unregistered madaris. No such action has been reported from the other three provinces.

About reforms and registration of madaris, Chaudhry Nisar, who is the focal person for implementation of the NAP, has admitted that it is a time-consuming exercise, but says the provincial apex committees are actively working on NAP’s implementation. He said a standard registration form had been prepared and shared with the provinces. The authorities in Punjab, Islamabad Capital Territory and Azad Kashmir have completed the mapping of madaris in their areas and the exercise is being carried out in the other provinces.

About 30,000 madaris, both registered and unregistered, are operating in the country and critics say that even if 10 per cent of them are not following rules, as per the interior minister’s own estimate, action needs to be stepped up.

In a separate report on the initiatives taken by the successive governments to reform madressah education, Minister for Religious Affairs and Inter-Faith Harmony Sardar Mohammad Yousaf has claimed that no progress was made on this front since 2000 – the era of Gen Parvez Musharraf.

According to him, a madressah education board was set up through the “Pakistan Madressah Education (Establishment and Affiliation of Model Dini Madaris) Board Ordinance, 2001, to cater to religious and modern education. Under the ordinance, three model seminaries were set up – one each in Islamabad, Karachi and Sukkur. In Islamabad, the seminary was only for girls and those in Sukkur and Karachi for boys. The number of these madaris was to be increased with the passage of time, but unfortunately not one has been added so far.

The purpose of the Pakistan Madressah Education Board (PMEB) was to improve and secure uniformity of standards of education and to integrate the system of Islamic education imparted in Madaris within the general education system throughout the country.

The ordinance has given the board sufficient powers to extend its operations throughout the country, but except for the establishment of the three model seminaries, the board has not been able to carry out effectively in any of its other stated functions, the religious affairs minister says in the report. The establishment of the three madaris is a partial success because instead of getting them affiliated with the board they were affiliated with the boards of intermediate and secondary education, he adds.

Despite the fact that the PMEB has not been able to carry out its functions for 14 years, the fact is that the rationale behind the establishment of the board, Sardar Mohammad Yousaf says, should not be underestimated.

He says that matters relating to madaris could have taken a different course if the regulatory mechanism visualised in the PMEB ordinance had been put in place. “The failure of the board to perform its function does not mean that the rationale behind the scheme is faulty.”

About the board’s current status, the minister is not clear if after the devolution of “Islamic education” to the provinces, operation and existence of the board is confined only to the federal areas.

In order to reactivate the PMEB, particularly after the Dec 16 terrorist attack on Peshawar’s Army Public School, the board held a meeting on March 11 this year, after a gap of 11 years, and constituted two committees.

But the committees will look only into recruitment rules for the board’s employees and scrutinise the legality of the recruitments made and the three model madaris.

The board’s chairman, Dr Amir Tauseen, was mandated to immediately start the process of affiliating about 500 new madaris with the board.

Talking to Dawn, he said that following a recent advertisement, the board had received 400 to 500 applications for affiliation which were being scrutinised.

Dr Tauseen clarified that these were independent madaris which were besides 33,000 registered with five madressah boards of different sects.

Published in Dawn, August 10th, 2015

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