Sindh to register madrasas under its own laws

Karachi
The Sindh government decided on Wednesday to register madrasas under the province’s own amended laws and coordinate with the religious scholars of all schools of thought so that the task could be achieved at the earliest.
At a meeting held in connection with the provincial apex committee’s directives, Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah assigned the task for coordinating with religious scholars to his special assistant for religious affairs Dr Qayoom Soomro.
Shah told Soomro to hold an urgent meeting with all stakeholders, including religious scholars, especially those associated with the Wafaqul Madaris, for reaching a consensus on the registration of seminaries under the amended provincial laws.
The chief minister said his government had sought guidelines from the Centre for the registration of seminaries and even recommended some amendments in this connection but the latter had not responded so far.
He added that that he could not wait further and waste time as the province had its own laws for the registration of madrasas and the provincial government was also amending them to make them more effective.
Soomro told the participants of the meeting that he had discussed the matter with religious scholars all of them were willing to cooperate with government.
He added that he had prepared a five-point agenda streamlining the process of registering seminaries.
The special assistant said he had visited five major seminaries in Karachi and 40 shrines throughout the province to obtain first-hand information about them from their managements and other stakeholders.
“The trust deficit between religious scholars and the government has been minimised,” he added.
Home secretary Mukhtar Soomro said the provincial government had earlier sought guidelines from the Centre and recommended amendments in the laws so that no-objection certificates from deputy commissioners, the home secretary and the Sindh Building Control Authority could become compulsory the registration of a seminary.
However, he added, the federal government had not assisted the province in this connection.
The home secretary said the Sindh government had completed the task of amending provincial laws that enabled it to register seminaries.
IGP Ghulam Hyder Jamali said 9,590 seminaries were reportedly functioning in the province, of which 6,503 were registered, 3,087 unregistered and 167 sealed because they were illegally built.
He said intelligence agencies had identified 48 madrassas in the province – 24 of them in Karachi - as suspicious and having links to terrorist organizations.
He added that the police force was ready to take action against the illegal and unregistered seminaries and prepared a strategy for this purpose.