All 'madrassas' are not fundamentalist, says Advani

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, AUG. 23. While expressing concern over the sudden mushrooming of `madrassas' in the border areas of the country, the Union Home Minister, Mr. L.K. Advani, today maintained that `madrassas' all over the country should not be accused of fundamentalist activities.

Addressing the members of the Parliamentary Consultative Committee attached to the Home Ministry, Mr. Advani shared the concern expressed by the MPs over the growth of `madrassas', particularly on the Indo-Nepal border.

Participating in the discussion, the members appeared worried over the activities of anti-national organisations aimed at spreading terrorism and anarchy throughout the country. They wanted a detailed survey of such organisations, including `madrassas'.

Mr. Advani said the sudden coming up of a number of `madrassas' in the border areas would be looked into. He agreed with the suggestion that the teachings in `madrassas' should be modernised to suit the times. He referred to West Bengal in this regard and said the Centre would be in touch with the State Government to know more about their schemes relating to `madrassas'.

Some members raised the implementation of recommendations of the Group of Ministers on Internal Security. The Home Minister said the recommendations can only be implemented with the cooperation of the State Governments. He allayed fears that there could be some difficulty in this with different political set-ups in different States. He said the recommendations were purely based on the reports of the task forces on defence, border management, internal security and intelligence. He said the recommendations would be discussed with national party leaders and also the Chief Ministers.

The committee was told that as many as 101 ISI-backed modules were smashed throughout the country during 1998-2001 while countering the covert offensive of Pakistan. The members were told that 19 terrorists, including six Pakistanis, were killed while busting the ISI-backed modules.

Counter-terrorist operations were intensified in Jammu and Kashmir which resulted in the killing of 1059 militants during the year as compared to 886 last year. The terrorists killed, included over 100 identified foreign mercenaries and five top terrorist commanders of the Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Hizb-ul- Mujahideen. Improved border management included dynamic deployment of forces, introduction of a three-tier system in sensitive sectors, enhancement of intelligence capabilities and action against border guides and harbourers. These steps also helped in foiling 66 infiltration bids.

The meeting was attended by Mr. Anand Mohan Biswas, Mr. H. Haokip, Mr. Aditya Nath, Mr. Somnath Chatterjee, Mr. Ali Mohammad Naik, Mr. Shivraj Patil, Mr. Sahib Singh Verma, Mr. Joyanta Rongpi, Mr. Avtar Singh Bhadana, Mr. A. Charan Sahu, all from the Lok Sabha; Mr. S. V. Virumbi, Mr. Swaraj Kaushal, Mr. Narendra Mohan, Dr. Karan Singh, General (retd.) Shankar Roy Chowdhury, Mirza Abdul Rashid and Mr. Balbir Punj, all from the Rajya Sabha. The Ministers of State for Home Affairs - Mr. I.D. Swami and Mr. Vidyasagar Rao - were also present.

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