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Ajay Kaul in New Delhi
Amid growing allegations of misuse of madrassas by terrorists, Delhi government is working to register all such religious institutions in the capital and set up a board to run them to help remove the 'crisis of credibility'.
Under the proposal, once these institutions come under the Madrassa Board, they will get some financial aid from the government and will start imparting formal education to the students along with religious curriculum.
At present about 1,000 madrassas are functioning in the capital and are mostly sustained by donations from devotees and some other institutions.
Only one of them -- Madrassa Auliya in Fatehpuri -- is run by the Delhi Wakf Board.
"We has asked for details from Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal (where the system is operative for last two years) to know the pattern functioning there," Delhi Food Minister and President of Delhi Wakf Board Haroon Yusuf said on Sunday.
He said the patterns and the rules and regulations applicable in West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh would be studied so that if anything is lacking in these, it could be corrected. "We want to give the best pattern which could be a model for others to follow," Yusuf said.
VHP on Saturday had demanded a ban on madrassas, alleging that 'lakhs of fundamentalist students of Taliban variety are churned out' from these institutions.
The madrasas are at present being run on donations and the Maulana performs the duty as teacher.
Each madrassa has between 10 to 50 students and the teacher normally gets about Rs 3,000 per month.
"Every person has the right to have religious studies. But if it is accompanied by formal education, it will be beneficial for the students," Yusuf said.
He said the primary objectives of the move were to save these religious institutions from allegations and enable their students to come into mainstream education after initial Islamic studies.
"At present students at madrassas are imparted teachings in Koran. The move proposes that formal education be given alongside the 'shariat' lessons so that a student intending to take up formal education at some stage in life does not face any problem," he said.
"Every person has the right to have religious studies. But if it is accompanied by formal education, it will be beneficial for the students," he said.
He said a tie-up could be arranged with formal schools so that pupil from madrassas get admissions in these at later stages of education.
As per the proposed move, the government would also have an audit of funds of these institutions conducted to clear apprehensions over their misuse.
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