Forty girls aged between nine and 14 years were found confined inside a toilet of an unregistered madrassa (Photo: X)
In a check-up, some 40 girls between the ages of nine to14 were discovered locked up inside a toilet in an unregistered madrassa here, the officials said on Thursday, September 25.
According to Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM) of Payagpur Ashwini Kumar Pandey, the district administration had been getting repeated complaints on the running of an illegal madrassa within a three-storey building in Pahalwara village in Payagpur tehsil.
On Wednesday, when we visited the building to inspect it, the operators of the madrassas first attempted to prevent us from going up the stairs. We got into the premise in the presence of police, and the toilet on the terrace was locked, he said.
As the female police personnel opened the door, 40 girls who were aged between 9 and 14 and were hiding in the toilet came out one after another. The girls were scared and could not utter anything intelligible.
The SDM requested the District Minority Welfare Officer ,Mohammad Khali,d to check the registration and legality of the institution.
The madrassa, according to Khalid, had been in operation and had not been registered in about three years.
The management and employees were unable to generate any paperwork on registration or legality. In the 2023 survey, 495 unregistered madrassas were reported in Bahraich, and he claimed that this one had gone unnoticed by the survey team at that time.
The state government has yet to come up with a clear policy on such illegal madrassas. Though a few of them were closed last year, their managers got a stay of the High Court, Khalid said, and a new regulatory framework is supposed to be forthcoming, he said, by the government.
Asking a question, we inquired why the girls were hiding within the toilet, though there were eight rooms in the madrassa and a teacher, Takseem Fatima, responded that the girls had panicked in frenzy and locked themselves within.
He indicated that the madrassa books are under investigation and that it has been ordered to close it down. The management instructs us to deliver the girls safely to their homes, and that, all have now arrived back at home, so Khalid said.
Further Superintendent of Police (City) Ramanand Prasad Kushwaha declared that no FIR has been filed yet. No case has been lodged by the parents, SDM or the minority welfare officer. In case of any complaint, relevant legal action will be taken, he said.
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