UP Shia board chief Waseem Rizvi cautioned that madrasas may be targets for ISIS to spread its influence
In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, UP Shia Central Waqf Board Chairman Waseem Rizvi has demanded shutting down of primary-level madarsas across the country in order to check terror group ISIS' influence on Muslim children.
Mr Rizvi, who has supported the demand for the Ram temple in Ayodhya and uniform civil code in the country, said Muslim children, if they want, can take admission in madarsas after completing high school.
"It can be seen that children are soft targets for running any mission and at this point of time ISIS is a dangerous terror organisation which is gradually getting hold over the Muslim population across the world."
"...if madarasas are not shut down, about half of the country's population will become supporters of the ISIS ideology in 15 years' time," Mr Rizvi said in the letter.
Stressing that the "support to ISIS is clearly visible in Jammu and Kashmir," where through the monetary support to the children attending madarsas, they are being alienated from people of other religion in the name of "Islamic education", he said.
"In the rural areas of the country also, the primary madarasas in the name of donations are harming the future of our children and promoting fundamentalist thinking...this is damaging both the country and the Muslim children," he said.
UP Shia Waqf Board chairman Waseem Rizvi has written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi
Taking admission in madrasas after schooling will not only help them take normal education till the high school-level along with children of different sections of society and religion, but also will deter them from getting easily influenced by fundamentalist thinking, he added.
Mr Rizvi has previously supported building of the Ram temple at the disputed site in Ayodhya and a mosque ''Masjid-e-Aman'' in Lucknow.