Uttarakhand District Magistrates asked to look into funding of illegal madrassas

Dehradun, Mar 25 (PTI) The Uttarakhand government has asked all district magistrates to look into the source of funding of illegal madrassas, a move that comes after more than 100 illegal seminaries were sealed in the state.
    It will be found out during the probe from what sources the madrassas were receiving the funds and for what purposes they were using them, a source said.
The objective is to verify whether or not these madrassas were being funded clandestinely through hawala, the source said.
The officials have been asked to carry out their investigations and submit a report directly to the Chief Minister's office.
Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami had recently said that action against illegal madrassas in the state would continue.
"Running of illegal madrassas on a large scale is a serious matter. Necessary instructions have been given to officials to investigate it," he had said.
As many as 136 illegal madrassas have been sealed in the state so far after a drive against them was launched last month following the chief minister's order.
The maximum number of 64 such madrassas were sealed in Udham Singh Nagar district followed by 44 in Dehradun, 26 in Haridwar and two in Pauri.
    According to official records, there are more than 500 illegal madrassas in the state functioning without their affiliation to the Madrassa Board.
    The number of registered madrassas, which provide the administration documents like their bank account details and records of their expenses, are 450.
    The number of unregistered madrassas in districts bordering Uttar Pradesh like Udham Singh Nagar and Haridwar has gone up in recent times.
    Places where they have mushroomed include Jaspur, Bajpur, Kiccha, Kashipur, Rudrapur and Gadarpur, the source said.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)