Furore over Shia board chief’s madrasa remark

Lucknow: The Shia Waqf Board chairman Waseem Rizvi on Tuesday created a fur-ore when he wrote a letter to PM Narendra Modi and CM Yogi Adityanath saying that madrasas produce terrorists and should be merged into mainstream schools.

“Have you ever thought why madrasas do not produce IAS officers, engineers and doctors? These institutions do produce terrorists. The need of the hours is to merge the madrasas into mainstream schools with an option for Islamic education,” he said.

Mr Rizvi said that madrasas should be affiliated to CBSE and ICSE boards so that they can be a part of mainstream education. He said that religious education could be given as an option.

“The madrasas are only producing unemployable Muslim youth, who have no option but to join terror groups. Madrasas have failed to improve literacy level among Muslims and time has come for us to do some introspection on this,” he said.

He also pointed out that several madrasas were being used to aid terrorist activities.

Mr Rizvi’s contention has, expectedly, evoked a strong reaction from his own community.

Maulana Khalid Rashid Firangi Mahali, a senior member of the All-India Muslim Personal Law Board, termed Mr Rizvi’s statement as the “biggest joke of the century”.

“In any case, the Shia Waqf Board is not a representative body of Musl-ims and everyone knows about the political affiliation of its chairman. He has insulted Muslims by making such comments on madrasas,” he said.