THE interior minister may play down the number of madressahs in the country that have links with terrorism — 10pc he said recently — but the extraordinary measures that are to be taken ahead of the Pakistan Day military parade belie that cautious stance.

Unless of course the military knows or suspects something that the civilian government doesn’t. As per the announcement, all 39 of the madressahs and two imambargahs in the two-kilometre vicinity of the venue at Shakarparian in the Islamabad Capital Territory are to be vacated a week in advance of the parade which is being held after a gap of eight years.

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The measure was demanded by the intelligence agencies and security forces and conveyed to the interior ministry that issued instructions to the effect. Meanwhile, the Wafaqul Madaris Al Arabia Pakistan, the umbrella body that oversees the madressahs belonging to the Deobandi sect, has issued a statement denouncing the forcible closure of the seminaries which it said would fuel suspicion against them.

Clearly something is very amiss here. If these are indeed establishments with questionable agendas that could pose a threat to the military parade, why have they been allowed to exist at all in Pakistan’s capital, the seat of its government?

And what of the citizenry that has been forced to live in close quarters with such elements?

Moreover, after the parade, once the tanks have rolled away, the marching battalions retreated to their barracks, and the dignitaries been whisked off to the safety of their well-guarded abodes, will these evidently dubious institutions be allowed to return to business as usual?

Religious extremism is hardly a new phenomenon, and such madressahs did not emerge overnight. Islamabad is also the headquarters for a large chunk of the country’s vast intelligence apparatus.

One may well ask what it was up to during all these years when such seminaries were proliferating in the city without let or hindrance. For an answer one would have to look to the establishment’s duplicitous and short-sighted strategy of using religious militancy as a tool of foreign policy, a game plan that has in recent times imploded spectacularly, exacting a steep price from civilians and soldiers alike.

The only viable way forward is to abjure that ruinous path and regulate madressahs — all madressahs of every persuasion — notwithstanding their protests or the threats by affiliated religious parties. Far more is at stake here than a military parade.

Published in Dawn, February 18th, 2015

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