Uttar Pradesh’s Minority Affairs Minister Dharampal Singh has slammed the Muslim leaders opposing the survey of private unrecognised madrasas, saying they never enroll their children in theological schools and that is the reason for opposing the survey.
“There should be no cause of concern over the survey. Leaders like Asaduddin Owaisi send their children to private schools and pay exorbitant fees. In madrasas only poor children are enrolled and they will be benefitted by the survey, so the Muslims leaders are questioning the survey and attributing political motives to it,” Dharmapal Singh said on Sunday. Moreover, the Minister said as the survey would bring out the sources of funds of a large number of private unrecognised madrasas, this could be one of the reasons for opposing the survey.
“Owaisi has described the survey as a mini NRC (National Register of Citizens), but neither he nor his children were ever students of a madrasa. Let him first enroll his son in a madrasa then he will earn the right to speak about the madrasas,” the minister said.
With the Uttar Pradesh government ordering a survey of private madrasas, proprietors of theological schools fear that their institutions may be declared illegal and "run over by bulldozers". The clerics had expressed the fear on September 6 in New Delhi at a meeting of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind, (Arshad Madani faction) and organisations of Islamic clerics belonging to the Deobandi school of Sunni Islamic thought. The UP government had then said that these apprehensions had no basis.