RAWALPINDI: Authorities implementing the counterterrorism National Action Plan (NAP) have found that 115 among the people put on a watch list in Rawalpindi district for having links with banned groups belonged to madressah faculties.

Their placement on the 4th schedule of the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) 1997 bound them to inform the local police about their activities and out-of-town travels before leaving, and on return to, their place of residence. But the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) found the police to be lax in keeping a watch on them.

Dawn has learnt that the CTD has written to the Rawalpindi City Police Officer (CTO) Israr Ahmed Abbasi to take appropriate measures to check the activities of the individuals on the watch list and see that they disassociate themselves from madressahs.

Section IV of the ATA also requires any person on the list who has served a prison term to provide a surety bond that he would keep good behaviour and peaceful conduct for three years.

Since receiving the CTD’s critical communication, the district police have started collecting ‘fresh surety bonds’ from all those persons who got training in Afghanistan during the West-supported jihad there in the 1980s and the Lal Masjid elements.

  Asked if any of the so-called Afghan Trained Boys (ATBs) or Returnees from Afghan Prisons (RAPs) figured among the 115 faculty members of madressahs now on the Schedule IV list, a senior security official replied in the negative.

Counter Terrorism Department has asked CTO Israr Ahmed Abbasi to take measures to check the activities of such individuals

“Their names were placed on the list for having links with banned organisations,” he said.

The CTD communication suggested to the CPO Rawalpindi to direct SHOs of police stations to issue notice to madressah faculty members figuring on the watch list to dis-associate themselves as under the new laws they can’t run madressahs.

It added that if such a faculty member managed to get pre-arrest bail from a court, police should initiate legal action under the relevant sections of ATA.

CTO Rawalpindi Israr Ahmed Abbasi, however, told Dawn that “the police will not take any action against any such person for being a faculty member of some madressah unless he violates ban on use of loudspeaker or found delivering hate-speeches.”

He said fresh surety bonds have been obtained from the people placed on the watch list in Rawalpindi and expected over 100 more added to it.  

A similar report prepared by the Special Branch of police in 2013 had informed the Punjab Home Department that 40 individuals on the ATA watch list were working in government departments, including sensitive institutions and schools.

According to intelligence agencies, there are 1,256 madressahs in Rawalpindi division. Only 507 of them are registered and the rest are unregistered.

Together they have 74,400 students on their rolls – 36,352 of them in madressahs in the Rawalpindi district.

Published in Dawn, August 3rd, 2015

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