More than 100 illegal madrasas have been sealed as district administrations across Uttarakhand continued their crackdown on minority institutions flouting the norms.

The administration in the Himalayan state has taken a tough stand against the madrasas run without government’s permission following an order of Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami to identify and act against them while looking for the elements involved in illegal religious activities.

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On Thursday, 16 madrasas were sealed in the Udhamsingh Nagar district and two in Haridwar by the enforcement agencies with the help of local police. Prior to this, 92 illegal madrasas were sealed in the Dehradun and Pauri districts taking the tally of the closed unregulated madrasas in Uttarakhand to 110 in the drive in a month of its launch.

The chief minister has been repeatedly claiming that illegal madrasas won’t be allowed to function by his government but strict action would be taken to weed them out. More than a month ago, he ordered the Home Department, all district magistrates, state police, and other senior officials concerned in the secretariat to identify illegal madrasas and other infrastructures established on encroached government lands and take strict action against them.

The Uttarakhand Madarsa Board runs nearly 416 madrasas in the state while the number of unregulated and unregistered minority institutions is said to be much higher.

Dhami has given a free hand to the administration to act against the madrasas run without permission from the government and requisite authorities or the bodies. The Chief minister’s direction has a wider impact with the madrasas being hunted down. A huge campaign has been going on against illegal madrasas across the state for more than a month.

The administration has also initiated an investigation to find the faces and brains behind the illegal madrassas across the state as, according to them, they cannot mushroom without an organisation working on running the illegally-run madrasas on such a big scale. Apart from this, efforts are also going on to find out the kind of education being imparted to the students in these institutions.