Madrassa Al-Faridia: Residents seek shifting of seminary

Citizens write to PM saying seminary students were involved in the Lal Masjid incident.

ISLAMABAD: The residents of two posh sectors wrote a letter to the prime minister on Tuesday seeking his help in shifting of a religious seminary allegedly involved in the Lal Masjid incident.

The letter termed the institute as a threat to Islamabad’s security and asked Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to order the shifting of the madrassa to Bhara Kahu, where the Capital Development Authority has allocated 20 acres of land for them.

The letter, a copy of which is also available with The Express Tribune, was written by the Citizens Support Forum (CSF), a body comprising residents of sectors E-7 and F-7.

In the letter, they wrote, “We would like to share with you our agony and suffering at the hands of 4500 Talibans who used to live in the illegally constructed Madrassa Al-Faridia in E-7.”

The students of the madrassa, the letter said, continuously “terrorised” women during their daily walks.

“It will not be an exaggeration if we say that we have gone through ‘purgatory hell’ [for] over 10 years at the hands of these terrorists and militants who lived in E-7 under the garb of religious students,” the residents wrote in the letter.

The letter alleged that the Taliban are making “all-out efforts to re-establish their base for terrorist activities and to support the Hafsa Brigade”. The CSF estimates that there are about 12,000 Taliban trying to gain a foothold in Islamabad, with Lal Masjid being their current contact point. These Taliban are also trying to get the Madrassa Al-Faridia re-opened.

Despite the ban on its re-opening, about 95 Taliban have come and forcibly occupied the madrassa, saying that the Supreme Court has authorised the institute’s re-opening, the letter said. The madrassa has already started receiving “so called students” from Dir and Charsadda, the letter added.

The madrassa, before it was shut down, had a pivotal role to play in the Lal Masjid incident in 2007, according to the letter. The residents of the sector had written “dozens” of written appeals to the government at various levels, but nothing was done and the madrassa “flourished and led to the tragic episode at Lal Masjid”, the letter said.

A total of 154 people were killed in the nine-day-long siege.

The letter alleged, “[The students of the madrassa] helped ferry arms and ammunition and stored most of it in the adjoining forest and later shifted this to Madrassa Hafsa,” adding that the Taliban from Al-Faridia were giving logistical support to the then Hafsa seminary and Lal Masjid.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 29^th, 2010.