Madarasas criticise midnight raids, say they do not indulge in illegal activities

By Syed Akbar
Hyderabad: Managements of madarasas on Thursday accused the Congress government in the State of anti-Muslim stance after a police team raided a well-known Islamic seminary in the outskirts of the city late on Wednesday night.
Two more madarasas including a girl's seminary were raided on Thursday afternoon. The police, however, described the raids as a simple verification exercise.
A posse of policemen swooped on the 25-year-old Darul Uloom Hyderabad, managed by eminent Islamic scholar Moulana Hameeduddin Aquil Hussami, in the dead of night and conducted a virtual identification parade of students and teachers.
 Most of the students in the madarasa are below 14 years and several of them are orphans. The midnight swoop forced the Muslim clergy to denounce the police action as nothing short of  "terrorising the minority
community and branding Muslims as terrorists".
The police team returned on Thursday morning for verification of madarasa records as part of the "investigation" into the twin bomb blast in the city earlier this week. Incidentally, Moulana Aquil had
campaigned for the Congress during the last Assembly elections and shared dais with senior Congress leaders including Chief Minister YS Rajasekhar Reddy.
"Madarasa is nothing more than an educational institution where education is provided free. It is open to all. Anyone can visit any madarasa and verify for themselves about its activities. Raiding a madarasa in the dead of night will send wrong signals and create communal frenzy. The government is branding Muslims as terrorists and this will lead to ill-will between Hindus and Muslims. People of other communities will look at Muslims with suspicion if the police did not desist from such actions," Moulana Khalid Saifullah Rahmani,
general secretary of the Deeni Madaris Board, told this correspondent.
The Madaris Board, an umbrella body of madarasas in the State, held an emergency meeting in the city on Thursday evening to denounce the "highhanded" action of the police. It said several young students are
traumatised by the presence of the police late in night.
Representatives of over three dozen top madarasas participated in the meeting and decided to call on Chief Minister YS Rajasekhar Reddy after the Friday congregation prayers to lodge their protest. They warned of severe Muslim backlash if the Congress government did not desist from actions that would brand Muslims as terrorists or supporters of terror groups.
Police on Thursday afternoon raided Darul Uloom Anwarul Huda at Kishanbagh and Jamia Ayesha Siddiqa Lil Banat, a girl's religious school at Misriganj, angering the Islamic clergy. The Madaris Board alleged that though madarasas were opening their records before the police, instances of midnight knocks had gone up in
old city.
The Board, comprising senior Islamic clergy some of international repute, wondered what had forced the police to swoop on the madarasas during ungodly hours when they could do so in the morning. "Madarasas create responsible and God-fearing citizens. No terrorist has ever been rounded up from a madarasa in India.
Even senior BJP leaders like LK Advani gave clean chit to Islamic seminaries. If we come across any anti-social or anti-national element, we will be the first ones to hand them over to the police. But looking at Muslims in general and madarasas in particular with suspicious eyed is not a healthy trend and this will have far reaching repercussions on the overall social fabric," Moulana Hameeduddin Aquil, who chaired the
meeting, said.