Registration of seminaries grinds to a halt

Karachi
The ongoing process of registering seminaries in the province has been suspended for the past week as the Sindh government claims to await the new SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) to be issued by the federal interior ministry.
Well-placed sources told The News that the registration of seminaries has been halted since the past week after the federal government had asked law enforcement authorities to wait for a new SOP before resuming the process.
However, more than a week has passed since the meeting in Islamabad and security officials in Sindh are still waiting for the notice from the federal interior ministry to restart the process of registration.
In order to fully implement the National Action Plan (NAP), law enforcement authorities of the province had initiated bold stops to control extremism. The forces have been conducting information-based and targeted raids to nab terrorists, and also the supporters and facilitators of proscribed organisations.
To draw out the nexus between financing and recruitments of terrorists, local magistrates with contingents of Rangers had been searching and inspecting seminaries and registering them after verifying their documents.
The facilities were being checked for recruitment and harbouring of militants and their indoctrination, besides their role in spreading and inciting sectarian hatred.
Under the NAP, the Karachi Police had been tasked with searching and surveying 23 seminaries — eight in district East and 15 in district West — out of which 18 facilities have yet to be inspected and registered.
So far, the police were able to canvass and register one seminary in Shah Faisal town of district East and four others in SITE and Haroonabad areas of district West.
Law enforcement officials told The News that as planned, security agencies had begun the process of registration and Sindh IGP Ghulam Hyder Jamali and Director-General Rangers Maj Gen Bilal Akbar had held separate meetings for its swift completion.
Sources said it had been found that 584 seminaries in Karachi were operating without any registration. Out of the total unregistered seminaries, they said, 144 were in district East, 343 in district West and 97 were in district South.
Sources said only data of local students was available and their estimated number was 73,000 across Karachi. However, the law enforcers had no idea how many foreigners were studying in these seminaries.
Recently, the Sindh Police’s Special Branch had begun geo-tagging of seminaries in Karachi.
However, geo-tagging of seminaries in Hyderabad division was completed where 1,850 facilities were identified and registered. Meanwhile, work is under way to complete geo-tagging of seminaries in Mirpurkhas, Sukkur and Larkana divisions.
During a recent meeting held pertaining to the implementation of NAP, the Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah had been informed that 167 seminaries in the province had been shut down by the law-enforcement agencies on different grounds.
The police officials had informed the chief minister that 21 seminaries in Karachi, Hyderabad and Badin districts had been searched for their alleged involvement in suspicious activities and hate material had been recovered from a few of them. Criminal cases were registered against the facilities and subsequent investigations were under way.
Meanwhile in Islamabad, Prime Minister Mian Mohammad Nawaz Sharif after chairing a meeting to review the NAP last week, had issued a statement saying that the government was implementing the plan in 20 key areas identified and agreed upon through consensus by the national leadership.
The meeting had included Ulema from the Tanzeem Ittehad-ul-Madaris, a conglomerate of five seminaries’ organisations representing major schools of thoughts, and it was reiterated that Islam had nothing to do with terrorism.
The prime minister had said that for a meaningful implementation of the NAP, consultations with the managements and administrations of organisations representing seminaries had become necessary to take them on board for moving forward with the National Action Plan.
Later, addressing a press conference, interior minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan had said Pakistan had nothing to do with terrorism and the religious seminaries were not fomenting terrorism in the country.
The interior minister had said the government had decided to take assistance from religious leaders and clerics of all the schools of thought to battle terrorism and extremism in the country.
He had said the registration and regularisation of seminaries was taking place with the cooperation of religious organisations.
Then interior minister had claimed that all religious schools of thought and
their subsequent leaderships were willing for registration and regularisation of seminaries.
In this regard, he said, a joint committee was being formed with the coordination of seminaries’ organisations and leaders of all religious sects to prepare a comprehensive registration form for registration of madressahs within a period of three months.