India: Uttarakhand Government Abolishes Madrasa Board
The Uttarakhand government has passed the Uttarakhand Minority Education Bill, 2025, which introduces sweeping reforms to overhaul the administration of minority-run educational institutions across the state.
Dissolving the existing Madrasa Education Board, the law repeals the Uttarakhand Madrasa Education Board Act of 2016, and the Non-Government Arabic and Persian Madrasa Recognition Rules of 2019; both will cease to exist on July 1, 2026.
The government will establish a new body, the State Authority for Minority Education (USAME), which will ensure compliance with infrastructure, safety, and academic standards, while mandating affiliation with the Uttarakhand Board of School Education. Institutions will also be required to adopt the National Curriculum Framework (NCF) under India’s New Education Policy of 2020.
The unrecognized madrassas have until July 1, 2026 to register under the new framework, and failure to comply may result in closure. The state currently has about 450 to 500 recognized madrasas, with roughly as many estimated to be unregistered. Over the past year, the state has closed more than 170 unrecognized madrasas in districts such as Haridwar, Dehradun, Nainital, and Udham Singh Nagar, describing the step as an effort to bring transparency and accountability to minority education.
The restructuring aims to integrate minority schools run on religious doctrines into the mainstream education system. This will bring madrasas under a formalized framework, helping to regulate funding, teacher qualifications, and safety standards while curbing unregistered, illegal, and suspicious activities.
In recent years, several incidents across India have drawn attention to jihadist elements connected with madrasas, and madrasas being linked to jihad activities, including rioting and terror activities. These involvements have further intensified the debate around regulation, oversight, and alert supervision.
In 2020, the National Investigation Agency arrested Abdul Momin Mondal, a teacher at Raipur Darul Huda Islamia Madrassa in Murshidabad, West Bengal, on charges of recruiting for an al-Qaeda module and attempting to recruit youth for jihad. He was accused of organizing meetings and raising funds for jihad terror-linked operations in eastern India.
In 2022, Assam Police arrested Abdus Sobahan, a madrasa teacher from Goalpara district, for alleged links with the Bangladesh-based outfit Ansar ul-Islam, which is believed to be affiliated with al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS). He was reportedly part of a local cell promoting Islamic jihad. That same year, another madrasa teacher, Saiful Islam alias Suman, was arrested for involvement in the same network. Following his arrest, authorities demolished the Jamiul Huda Islamic Academy for its alleged terror links. It was also reportedly an illegal construction.
In September 2022, police in Kishtwar, Jammu and Kashmir, detained Qari Abdul Wahid, a madrasa instructor accused of passing sensitive information about security installations to Pakistan-based handlers associated with a group called the Kashmir Janbaz Force.
Assam’s Special Task Force made multiple arrests related to Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT) cells in 2024 and 2025 that aimed to curb cross-border jihad networks believed to be operating in the state. Police reports indicated that several of those detained had associations with local madrasas or had Islamic academic roles.
Not only teachers, but several madrasa students and madrasa-linked minors have also been found involved in incidents of stone-throwing, rioting, and violent protests in recent years.
During protests over the prophet remark in 2022, there were reports that madrasa students chanted slogans, raised placards, and in areas including Deoband, Uttar Pradesh, took part in stone-throwing incidents; according to police, some students from madrasas were identified in CCTV footage connected to the unrest.
In September 2023, in Kheda district in Gujarat, an FIR named individuals who threw stones and bricks from the rooftop of a madrasa and neighboring buildings during a Hindu religious procession, with police officers among the injured and dozens of accused arrested under sections of the IPC for communal violence.
In November 2023, police confirmed that three minors affiliated with a local madrasa were detained for throwing stones at a group of Hindu women participating in the “Kuan Pujan” ritual in Nuh, Haryana; the women reported injuries, and the maulvi of the madrasa was summoned for questioning.
In February 2024, in Haldwani, Uttarakhand, violent clashes erupted after an unauthorized madrasa was abolished. Rioters took to stone-throwing at police personnel and municipal officials, set vehicles ablaze, and injured many.
These numerous cases of jihad- and terror-linked activities emerging from some madrasas have underscored the need for greater oversight that the new law of Uttarakhand aims to cover. This stands as an exemplary action by the state government which remains to be adapted by other Indian states that suffer from instances of Islamic jihad activity regularly.
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