ISLAMABAD - The Ministry of Interior has rejected a request of the Sindh government to proscribe some religious seminaries falling in the jurisdiction of the province as well as in other provinces and FATA on grounds of incomplete information and insufficient evidence against them.
The Ministry of Interior in reply to a letter of Sindh government has written to it that action could not be taken against these seminaries due to lack of information and evidence against them besides a number of these fell out of the jurisdiction of the province.
The Sindh government earlier had written to the Ministry of Interior to take action and proscribe 94 seminaries for their alleged involvement in suspicious activities. The list of these seminaries had been attached with the letter.
The ministry in the letter has made it clear to the provincial government that under the relevant laws, any seminary could not be proscribed as the federal government could ban some organisations only.
The ministry in its letter said that in first stance that the list had incomplete addresses of some of the seminaries. Secondly, the ministry said that the list even had incomplete names of seminaries falling out of the jurisdiction of Sukkur and Karachi. Some of the seminaries are located in the jurisdiction of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab and Federally Administered Tribal Areas and thus action could not be taken against them.
The Ministry of Interior further said in the letter that the Sindh government had not recommended any specific action against these seminaries rather a vague action had been sought. “This is hard to understand to recommend action against these seminaries without complete information and solid evidence besides the facts some of these fell out of the jurisdiction of the province,” the ministry said.
The letter said that the provincial government had not studied the relevant rules and legal requirements to proscribe any organisation. The incomplete information and vague letter of the Sindh government shows that it had taken this step to cover its inabilities in the implementation of National Action Plan (NAP) or had done this for political purposes, the ministry said.
The federal government also advised the Sindh government to provide complete information, including addresses about the seminaries falling in its authority and what specific action could be taken against them under the law.
The ministry said that the Sindh government should inform that what action had been taken against these seminaries and persons associated with these by the provincial police and all law enforcement agencies. If evidences were available against these seminaries then why action was not taken against them by the Sindh government itself as this comes under its powers.
Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali while talking to reporters at the Parliament House here on last Tuesday had said that the Sindh government, through a letter written to his ministry, had sought proscription of 94 ‘suspected’ religious seminaries. The minister had showed his surprise that how seminaries could be proscribed.
Ministry rejects Sindh’s request to proscribe 94 seminaries