RAWALPINDI: The staff of Counterterrorism Department (CTD) and the police on Friday visited 22 madressahs in Rawalpindi district to check the record and other details of foreign students studying there.

The CTD also caught an activist of a proscribed organisation collecting donations, besides recovering hate material from a madressah in Jhelum, the security sources revealed.

Madressah Dar-ul-Aloom Farooqia, located in Quaid-i-Azam colony, Dhamial, was particularly in focus where the police were not given access by its administration before. But this time no resistance was offered to the CTD teams.

The madressah is owned by the deputy secretary of Wafaq-ul-Madaris Qazir Abdul Rashid.

When contacted, Qazi Abdul Rashid told Dawn that the intelligence officials were given access to all those material which they wanted to check. However, he expressed his concern over the police presence which he said created panic in the neighborhood and among the students.

He said: “We believe in dialogues and if the government wanted to get any information, they should have followed a proper way.”

When the city police officer, Israr Ahmed Abbasi, was contacted, he said during the search operation the police only scanned the students and their activities and did not arrest anybody.

According to the security sources, the search operation in Rawalpindi division will continue as more than 1200 madaris are located in the division.

Published in Dawn, August 9th, 2015

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