Voicing strong opposition over the government’s ordinance on registration of all Pakistani madarsas, hardline Islamic clerics have rejected it saying it would curb the freedom that the religious schools currently enjoy.The ordinance has sparked off stiff protest among hardline clerics headed by Maulana Fazlur Rehman, chief of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F), who has refused to register the seminaries with the government.‘‘We reject the madaris registration ordinance which President General Pervez Musharraf has promulgated by amending the Society Act,’’ Rehman, also the Leader of the Opposition in the Pakistan National Assembly and general secretary of the Islamist alliance Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) said after a meeting to discuss the Ordinance.‘‘If we approve such amendments and the Parliament also approves them, we will be forced to introduce the government-dictated syllabus and employ government-recommended teachers in the madarsas. This is not possible for us,’’ he said.Rehman said JUI-F, a party headed by clerics representing their interests, would not register its 8,500 seminaries across Pakistan. He said the party has decided not to register religious schools under the Amended Society Registration Act, 1860, and also refused to repatriate foreign students studying in its seminaries.Meanwhile, more than 300 hardline Islamic schools in Pakistan have vowed to resist the government order, a senior cleric said on Tuesday. Representatives of the madarsas met in Islamabad on Monday and denounced the order from President Pervez Musharraf as discriminatory.Abdul Rashid Ghazi, a senior teacher at Jamia Faridia, one of Islamabad’s main madarsas, said the government enforced the law without taking clerics into its confidence. ‘‘This is a discriminatory and unilateral law. We reject it,’’ he said on Tuesday.‘‘Madarsas should not be singled out for registration. All private institutions and schools, some of which are preaching anti-Islamic and anti-Pakistan teachings, should also be registered. How can they expect us to talk to them and cooperate when they are conducting raids on madarsas and mosques,’’ he added. ‘‘If they use force, then it will be responded to in the same way.’’Musharraf’s move came as part of efforts to rein in Islamist militancy after revelations that three of the four bombers in July 7 attacks in London were Muslims of Pakistani origin, at least one of whom had visited madarsas in Pakistan.The country saw a spectacular rise in the number of madarsas in the 1980s when the schools, backed by funding from the West and Arab countries, became recruiting grounds for Islamic volunteers fighting Soviet forces in Afghanistan.Jamaat warns of more Bangla attacksDHAKA: Banned Islamic militant group Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen has warned it will strike again unless Bangladesh introduces Islamic rule. ‘‘This is the third invitation to the government of Bangladesh. if (it) fails to establish the Islamic law or try to arrest any member of Jamat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh. (we) will take direct action,’’ the group said in a statement on the website, jihadunspun.com ‘‘Everybody is the enemy of Islam who wants to launch democracy,” it said. —Reuters
