Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Former president Asif Ali Zardari has expressed his concern at Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government’s decision to allocate Rs 300 million from the exchequer for a madrassa in Nowshera known for its links with the Taliban.

“This is nothing, but legitimisation of militancy and the militant Taliban that will undermine the nation’s resolve to fight militants to the finish,” he said in a statement on Sunday.

Zardari’s spokesperson Farhatullah Babar said the former president was “deeply concerned” over the use of taxpayers’ money for legitimising a madrassa, which had been promoting “private jihad” in the country.

“The resources should have been spent on human development instead of a madrassa whose claim to fame is promotion of militant Islam and the worldview of Islamic militants,” he said in a statement. He said the head of the madrassa Dar-ul-Uloom Haqqania in Nowshera was an acknowledged sympathiser and undeclared spokesperson for the Taliban.

During the talks between the government and the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in 2014, he said, the Taliban named the head of the madrassa for negotiations on their behalf. “It is also widely known that a number of
militant Taliban leaders have been students of this madrassa,” he said.

Babar, who is also a member of the Senate of Pakistan, said it appeared that some elements were reviving the jihad project after the killing of Taliban chief Mullah Akhtar Mansour in a drone strike in Balochistan.

He said that recently conservative religious parties led by a proscribed organisation organised congregations in Islamabad against Mansour’s killing. Now, he said, a privately owned pro-Taliban madrassa had been given Rs 300 million. “Although the National Action Plan calls for stopping the banned outfits from resurrecting, they are promoting their militant agenda with impunity,” he said. He asked, “Is the jihad project being revived by design or by default?”