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01-09-2022
Bureau Report
NEW DELHI/ GUWAHATI: A private madrassa in India’s Assam was razed over alleged links with Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) and Bangladesh-based outfit Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT), reported Hindustan Times.
The outlet reported that this was the third private institute to be demolished for alleged connection with terrorist organizations.
District Superintendent of Police (SP) Swapnaneel Deka said that the police found incriminating documents during a raid that suggested links with terrorist groups.
Almost 200 students had to be sent home after a notice about the demolition was issued on Tuesday.
“Besides, the madrasa on private land was constructed without following necessary provisions and permits. Therefore, it was demolished under provisions of the Disaster Management Act,” said the SP.
Two imams at the madrassa alleged to the police that one of the teachers, had links with terror groups known al-Qaeda. On August 26, Rahman was arrested based on these allegations.
Days after one of its teachers was arrested for his alleged terror links, a madrasa in Assam’s Bongaigaon district was demolished Wednesday by the district administration in the third such case in the Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled Northeast state in the past one month.
Similar demolitions had taken place in Barpeta and Morigaon districts on 29 August and 4 August.
In the latest case, the administration brought down several structures at the campus of Marakazul MaArif Quariayana Madrasa in Kabaitary Part-IV village.
On Tuesday, the police raided the shop of the arrested teacher, Hafizur Rahman Mufti, at the madrasa campus during which they confiscated “incriminating material”, including a leaflet of Bangladesh-based Islamic group Ansarullah Bangla Team and a suspected logo of the al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS).
The order issued by the district administration, meanwhile, said that the madrasa faced action for violating the Disaster Management Act as its structures were found to be “structurally vulnerable and unsafe for human habitation”.
“It has also been reported that there was insufficient provision to mitigate any possible disaster like fire, earthquake, evacuation of residents nor is there provision of adequate open space to be used in case of disaster anytime,” the order stated.
ThePrint has a copy of the order.
Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma asserted that action was being taken against those madrasas which had links with terror. “We don’t have any intention to go on demolishing madrasas. Our intention is to see that they’re not used by jihadi elements. If we get specific inputs that the institution is being used under the guise of madrasa for anti-India activities, we will raise them,” Sarma told the media.
In the Barpeta case, a report had quoted a letter by district police head Amitava Singha as saying that the private madrasa had alleged links with Bangladesh-based terror outfit Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT) and that the land where it stood belonged to the state government.
Demolition in Barpeta had followed after the arrest of Mufti Mustafa Ahmed, who was running the madrasa, for allegedly harbouring links with radical Islamic group Ansar al-Islam.
