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The Islamic schools in Delhi are not averse to the state government's proposal to register them and set up a madrassa board.
There have been allegations that these schools have been used for "anti-national purposes".
"Such allegations against the madrassas are baseless. We teach our students the holy Quran, Hadith [sayings of Prophet Mohammed] and also maths, science, English and other subjects," says Mohammed Qasim, the administrator of Madrassa Taleem-ul-Quran, a seminary in R K Puram locality of New Delhi.
With 114 students in the age groups of 10-15, the seminary has both male and female teachers. Apart from Quran and Hadith, it is the books prescribed by the National Council for Educational Research and Training that the students learn here.
Inside the classroom, Mohammed Faheem, 10, from Haryana displays his textbooks. It is NCERT's Bal Bharati for Hindi, a maths textbook and another book on Islamic studies.
"Look at these kids. They are no terrorists in the making. We teach them the textbooks, the lessons of humanity, we do not teach them to hate others," says Zohaer Anwar, a retired college professor who teaches maths at the madrassa.
The students come mainly from the lower middle class and poorer sections of rural India.
"They are the students who do not have enough economic support. We charge Rs 600 as admission fee and Rs 250 for board and lodging. If someone cannot afford it, we do not charge," Qasim says.
It is mainly on donations from the devotees that the madrassa runs. "People come to pray to the mosque nearby and offer donations. Then some well off Muslims regularly contribute to the madrassa," he says.
The administration wants to equip the students not just with theology, but information technology as well. They have been planning to give computer facility to students, but the lack of donations is holding them back.
"The allegations against madrassas by certain sections have hurt us financially. People are hesitating to give funds now. So if the government formulates a madrassa board and helps in managing things better, it is a welcome step," says an administrator.
The capital houses around 1,000 madrassas. The Delhi government is studying the regulations set by the West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh governments for madrassas.
The Vishwa Hindu Parishad on Saturday had demanded a ban on madrassas, alleging that "lakhs of fundamentalist students of Taliban variety are churned out" from these institutions.
"Our madrassa has been operational since 1992. If we were churning out Taliban, then at least some of them would have been arrested or come to notice. But since that is not the case, there has not been any such complaint," says Qasim.
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