Bangladesh Islamic schools under spotlight

DHAKA (AFP) — Hirona Begum was hopeful when builders began constructing a new Islamic religious school next to her home in southern Bangladesh that her children would be able to attend classes there.

But the 28-year-old mother of three, who lives on the remote island of Bhola, was told by the school's owners, a British-based charity called Green Crescent, that the facility was not for local children.

"People from out of town were bussed in and bussed out. There was water around the building with a drawbridge they lifted up every night. Even if we became curious, we could never get close," she told AFP by telephone.

Last week police raided the school and seized a cache of weapons and explosive devices, as well as jihadi literature urging Muslims to take up arms, putting the spotlight on madrassas in Muslim-majority Bangladesh.

The schools have long been viewed by authorities as potential breeding grounds for Islamist terrorists and the Bhola raid has renewed fears that some seminaries are teaching radicalism.

Author Abul Barakat, who has studied religious seminaries and how they are funded in Bangladesh, said attempts in recent years to keep a close eye on the schools had largely been ineffective.

There are estimated to be around 54,000 madrassas in Bangladesh with only 12,000 given recognition and funding by the government.

The others are mainly privately funded with many getting money from overseas, and their numbers are thought to be on the increase.

"These (unofficial) madrassas offer free education, meals and accommodation to over 10 million students," Barakat said.

"They collect funds from wealthy donors at home, in the Middle East and expatriates in England and America. But some charities use part of their funding to train and recruit militants.

"The government has no idea what is being taught at some of these seminaries."

Although the situation is a far cry from Pakistan, where madrassas are accused of being at the heart of the country's chronic instability, Barakat said Bangladeshi authorities needed to act quickly to prevent future problems.

Police say the school in Bhola was a cover for a bomb-making factory and militants were planning some type of unspecified attack. They have arrested four people and are now investigating other charities in the country.

Britain, where the Green Crescent charity is registered in the northern town of Stockport, is home to a large Bangladeshi community and parents often send their children to the South Asian nation for madrassa education.

A.N.M. Muniruzzaman, president of the Bangladesh Institute of Peace and Security Studies, told AFP both countries needed to take a close look at who was travelling between the two nations and why.

"It's something authorities need to watch very closely," he said.

British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said last year on a visit to Dhaka that there were "linkages between terrorism in Britain and Bangladesh."

Bangladesh has been the target of Islamic terror groups in recent years -- including 400 blasts on just one day in August 2005 by the banned Jamayetul Mujahedeen Bangladesh (JMB).

The JMB was virtually silent under the army-backed government, which ruled for two years until January 2009, but authorities say the group is re-forming.

For villagers such as Hirona Begum, the recent police raid is a shock and has raised suspicions about what goes on behind the madrassas' closed doors.

"If they can plot a big attack right next to our house, who knows what else is going on around the country," she said.

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