'Govt should issue denial'

lucknow: a young boy of 10 is reciting verses from quran. watching him are two maulvis and qari mushtaq ahmad, the manager of madarsa aliya irfania. the maulvis nod in approval and the manager lets the boy go, and calls for the next. he must finish before he dashes off to his office in the up arabi-farsi board which funds the madarsa. but a majority of madrasas in up are not as fortunate, and contrary to the propaganda that they are financed by terrorist outfits, most are reeling under financial constraints."maulvis of many maqtab and madrasas have not got their salaries for six months," said masoodul hasan usmani, secretary of dini talimi council which runs a chain of madrasas throughout the country. only 1,000 of the 25,000 madrasas are affiliated to the state arabi-farsi board and 317 share the annual grant of rs 42.50 crore. so there is a scramble to get affiliated. besides the abb and dtc, darul-uloom nadwatul ulema, darul uloom deoband and tanzeemul makatib are major bodies running madrasas in up. some are managed by individuals or groups. they teach quran, theology, urdu, maths and morals up to class ii. hindi is introduced in class iii and english and social sciences from class iv. while the fifth pass certificate of madrasas run by dtc and nadwa are recognised by the government, theabb runs its own exams up to kamil, equivalent to ba and conducts exams for maulvi munshiand alim equivalent to school and intermediate respectively. "instead of thanking madrasas for imparting primary education they're being dubbed a den of terrorists," laments usmani. maulana engineer khadim hussain, all-india muslim majlis-e- mushawirat, who met the pm to protest the report that dubbed the madrasas as high risk factor. "vajpayee said that barring one or two on the indo-nepal border, nothing was wrong with madrasas," he says. '`the government should issue a denial of their report," hussain demands.