Conditions on seminaries' registration resented

Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal and Tanzeem Wifaq-ul-Madaris Al-Arabia (representing 8,000 religious institutions of all the four schools of thought) have convened a joint meeting tomorrow (August 28) in Karachi to chalk out a future strategy and to express their anger over the growing incidents of raids on the religious institutions in different parts of the country in the guise of al Qaeda hunt operation.
"We have decided to convene a joint meeting of the MMA and heads of all the five Wifaq-ul-Madaris Arabia on August 28 in Karachi to set a future strategy to meet the situation," said Qari Hanif Jhulandari.
He said: "We have already rejected the newly evolved conditions by the Interior Ministry for the registration of seminaries in the country describing it a way of harassment."
"Since the Federal Government has waived the mandatory registration of religious institutions and restored the previous procedure under the Society Act 1860 on the demand of the MMA, there is no justification to impose fresh conditions for registration of seminaries and we have rejected these pre-conditions in toto," said Qari Muhammad Hanif Jhulandari, general secretary of the Tanzeem, while talking to this correspondent on phone.
He asked whether these restrictions were dictated by foreign masters, who wanted to close these religious institutions providing education plus boarding and lodging facilities, free of cost, and playing a major role in eliminating the illiteracy from the society.
Qari Hanif said: "The Ministry of Interior has asked the seminaries to submit their syllabuses, source of funding, number of students, number of teaching staff, facilities of boarding and lodging with the application for registration, which is not acceptable to any institution."
There was a strong resentment among Ulema of all the four schools of thought (Deobandi, Barelvi, Shiite and Ahle-Hadith) over the clause on showing the source of funding and submission of syllabuses to the religious ministry."
Qari Hanif said: " We would take this issue in August 28 meeting of the Tanzeem Wifaq-ul-Madaris to protest against these pre-conditions for registration and restoration of registration for seminaries."