Assam madrasa demolition | Congress writes to National Commission for Minorities; seeks probe

The Congress leaders urged the NCM to intervene and investigate the entire matter and ensure justice for the 224 students of the now demolished madrasa.

Congress lawmakers from Assam have written to the National Commission for Minorities (NCM), urging it to investigate the demolition of a madrasa in Bongaigaon and ensure justice for its 224 students.

In a letter to the NCM chairperson Iqbal Singh Lalpura, Congress MP Abdul Khaleque and MLAs Pradip Sarkar, Abdur Rashid Mondal, Asif Nazar and Abdul Batin Khandakar alleged that the State government demolished the Markazul Ma-Arif Quariayana Madrassa in Bongaigaon "in blatant disregard to the rule of law".

The madrasa was razed to the ground on August 31, following an order issued by the Bongaigaon district magistrate on August 30. The order had said that the madrasa did not have the necessary documents for multipurpose activities on a single campus with multiple buildings.

The order also mentioned that the madrasa was structurally vulnerable and unsafe for human habitation as the buildings were not built according to PWD specifications.

"The district administration did not give sufficient time to the 224 residential students of the madrasa, who were mostly minors, to vacate the premises. The students had to vacate in the middle of the night, and had no shelter as most of them came from far-off places," the Congress leaders said in the letter.

“It was also an act of inhumanity towards these students who have been denied the right to education by such an unlawful action,” they alleged in the letter sent on September 5.