Assam: Madrasa demolished over 'jihadi activities'; Congress writes to minorities' body

A madrasa was allegedly demolished in Assam's Goalpara district on Tuesday over suspicion of jihadi activities. Police said the madrasa, located in Pakhiura Char under Matia police station, was allegedly demolished by locals claiming it was being used for jihadi activities by two absconding Bangladesh nationals.

The use of the madrasa premises for anti-national activity came to light following the arrest of Jalaluddin Sheikh, a cleric of the madrasa, PTI reported.

This is the fourth madrasa to be demolished in Assam over the last few weeks.

"The locals voluntarily demolished the madrasa and the residence adjacent to it in a mark of strong resentment towards Jihadi activities," an official said

The two Bangladeshi nationals have been identified as Mehendi Hasan and Jahangir Alom.

In August, three madrasas -- in Morigaon, Barpeta and Bongaigaon -- were razed by local authorities.

Meanwhile, Assam Congress MLAs have written to the National Commission for Minorities asking it to investigate the demolition of the madrasa in Bongaigaon.

In a letter to the NCM chairperson Iqbal Singh Lalpura, Congress MP Abdul Khaleque and MLAs Pradip Sarkar, Abdur Rashid Mondal, Asif Nazar and Abdul Batin Khandakar alleged that the state government demolished the Markazul Ma-Arif Quariayana Madrassa in Bongaigaon "in blatant disregard to the rule of law".

The local administration ordered the razing of the structure due to the lack of valid documents for running multiple activities on a single campus.

"The district administration did not give sufficient time to the 224 residential students of the madrasa, who were mostly minors, to vacate the premises. The students had to vacate in the middle of the night, and had no shelter as most of them came from far-off places," the Congress leaders said in the letter.

"The buildings were demolished by exercising the power conferred upon by the Disaster Management Act, 2005. It is pertinent to mention that the building of the madrasa had permission from the local panchayat and the construction was completed three years ago," they pointed out.

"The entire action is based on the backdrop of a teacher from the madrasa being arrested recently for allegedly having links with terror groups. The arrested teacher has already been suspended and the madrasa management had extended full cooperation to the investigating agencies as they scanned the entire campus but no incriminating documents were found on the premises during the search by the agencies," they claimed.

With inputs from PTI