Uttarakhand chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami has ordered verification of the facilities and health conditions of madrassa students in the state. Dhami’s order followed allegations of the ill treatment, sexual harassment and poor health of a madrasa students in Nainital.

Taking cognizance of the reports of inhuman treatment to the children in an illegal madrassa at Virbhatti village near Jeolikot in Nainital district, Dhami ordered additional chief secretary home Radha Raturi to verify the functioning of all the madrassas across the state. In his directive to the ACS, the chief minister said, “Get the verification done in all the madrassas running in the state. Initiate legal action wherever madrassas are following unethical lines of functioning. Also book those responsible for the ill treatment of students and children.”

Acting on Dhami’s order, the state home department issued instructions to all district magistrates to launch verification drives against the madrassas in their areas.

It is significant that the Nainital Police booked the head of the Virbhatti madrassa, Mohammed Haroon, and his son, Ibrahim, under the POCSO Act and Juvenile Justice (Protection of Children) Act 2015 for alleged inhuman treatment to the students. The madrassa was being run allegedly illegally in the name of Anjuman Ikra.

Police action followed a raid conducted by the Haldwani city magistrate, Richa Singh, after a complaint was lodged by one Mohammed Afzal and students against the madrassa management to the district magistrate.

Singh and her team discovered that the madrassa was running under highly unhygienic conditions, in which the inmates had bruises and rashes on their skins. One student was also suffering from tuberculosis. The police rescued 24 children from the madrassa and seized it.

According to the police and city magistrate, the rescued children have told them about the atrocities unleashed on them by the father-son duo, Haroon and Ibrahim. Singh stated that statements of the children have been recorded. These statements will be produced before the DM and the court.

Singh further stated that the student suffering from tuberculosis was examined by a doctor provided by the district administration. Although this student was under medication, he was constantly coughing and vomiting. Richa Singh stressed that besides general unhygienic conditions in the madrassa, the water tank was polluted with earthworms, insects, and dirty water.

Interestingly presently around 700 madrassas are being run in the Himalayan state. Out of them, 415 are affiliated to the Uttarakhand Madrassa Board, while 117 are under Uttarakhand Waqf Board. The remaining are illegal.

Meanwhile the state waqf board chief, Shadab Shams, has supported the CM’s action against the illegal madrassas and told this newspaper that the government must shut them as they were playing with the lives of poor children.

Shams said, “The waqf board is fully behind the decision of the chief minister. We request the government to go after these institutions playing with the future and lives of the poor children in the name of religious learning. They are destroying the future of the children to fulfil their greed.”