Guwahati: AIUDF chief and Dhubri MP Badruddin Ajmal has asked Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma to refrain from bulldozing madrasas in the state.

“Madrasas are public properties that cannot be bulldozed without any legal notice. Even the Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh has stopped using bulldozers now,” Ajmal said on Wednesday evening.

The AIUDF chief’s reactions came after Assam government demolishing a private madrasa in lower Assam’s Bongaigaon district over alleged links with Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) and Bangladesh-based terror outfit Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT).

 Taking a dig at the BJP government, Ajmal said such actions are an attack on the education of children in minority-dominated areas of the State.

“I urge the Chief Minister of Assam to stop this policy. If any individual is caught for a link with jihadi organisations or anti-national activities, the government should arrest him immediately and punish him according to the law,” he added.

Ajmal claimed that madrasas never teach hatred or communalism and demolishing them is unfair.

He said the madrasas targeted by the government were doing well academically and bringing them down is denying education specifically to Muslim children.  

The Bongaigaon madrasa was the third demolished by the Assam government after the arrest of 37 people over more than a month for allegedly working as operatives of the Bangladesh-based terror group ABT.

On Monday, a private madrasa in Barpeta district was razed by authorities. Likewise, another private institution in Morigaon district was brought down on August 4.