All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) has demanded withdrawal of a government order that directs the shifting of all students in unrecognised madrasas to state-run schools.
A delegation of the AIMPLB met Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Tuesday and submitted its demand.
The delegation lodged an objection to the notice issued by the state government to 8,449 madrasas in Uttar Pradesh on the basis of which the district administration is ordering these institutions to admit children studying there to schools for basic education.
The AIMPLB leaders and clerics termed the order issued by then chief secretary Durga Shanker Mishra on June 26 as against the Constitution, which has given minorities the right to establish and run educational institutions of their choice.
Similarly, madrasas and Vedic pathshalas have also been exempted from the Right to Education Act, 2009.
The AIMPLB also expressed strong objection to the letter issued by the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights to the chief secretary of the state on June 7.
Maulana Khalid Rasheed Firangi Mahali, who is Imam of Aishbagh eidgah, was present in the meeting at the chief minister’s official residence. He said that the delegation was led by the AIMPLB general secretary Maulana Fazlur Rahman Mujaddidi.
“The chief minister has assured that he will look into the matter,” Farangi Mahali said.
The then Uttar Pradesh chief secretary Durga Shanker Mishra, in an order dated June 26 and issued to all the district magistrates of the state, cited a letter from the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) dated June 7 that directed that all non-Muslim students studying in the government-funded madrasas be admitted to schools of the Basic Education Council to provide them with formal education.
In the letter, it was also said all the children studying in all such madrasas of the state, which were not recognised by the Uttar Pradesh Madrasa Education Council, should also be given admission in council schools.
Committees should be formed at the district level by the district magistrates to implement the entire process, the letter stated.
UP has approximately 25,000 madrasas. Of these, 16,000 are government-recognised, including 560 government-aided madrasas.
