Guwahati: Congress lawmaker from Assam urged the National Commission for Minorities (NCM) in a letter to look into the demolition of a madrasa in Bongaigaon and guarantee that its 224 students get justice.
Congress MP Abdul Khaleque and MLAs Pradip Sarkar, Abdur Rashid Mondal, Asif Nazar, and Abdul Batin Khandakar claimed in a letter to NCM chairperson Iqbal Singh Lalpura that the state government destroyed the Markazul Ma-Arif Quariayana Madrassa in Bongaigaon “in blatant disregard to the rule of law.”
Following a directive given by the Bongaigaon district magistrate on August 30, the madrasa was destroyed on August 31.
According to the order, the madrasa lacked the paperwork required for multipurpose operations on a single site with several buildings.
The madrasa allegedly lacked the paperwork necessary for multipurpose activities on a single site with many buildings, as stated in the order.
The judgement further said that the madrasa was structurally unsound and unfit for human habitation because the buildings had not been built in line with PWD norms.
“The 224 residential students of the madrasa, the most of whom were minors, were not given enough time by the district government to leave the building. The majority of the students had travelled from far-off regions, so they were forced to leave in the middle of the night without shelter”, the letter was written by the Congress leaders.
In the letter they addressed to NCM, they claimed that it was also an act of inhumanity against the pupils who had their right to an education denied by such an illegal conduct.
“The buildings were destroyed by using the authority granted by the 2005 Disaster Management Act. It is important to note that the madrasa’s construction was completed three years ago with approval from the local panchayat”, they said.
“The background for the entire activity is the recent arrest of a madrasa instructor on suspicion of having ties to terrorist organisations. The madrasa management had provided the investigative agencies with complete cooperation as they searched the entire site, and the accused instructor had already been suspended, but no incriminating documents were found in the premises during the search by the agencies,” they claimed.
The 224 students of the now-demolished madrasa were promised justice, and the Congress leaders pleaded with the NCM to step in, investigate the entire situation, and intervene.
Last month, two further madrassas were also destroyed, one in each of the districts of Barpeta and Morigaon.