LAHORE: Around 2,200 madrassas from across Pakistan registered with the government from August to November this year, Daily Times learnt on Tuesday. Most of these, 1,672, are in Punjab, with the rest in Sindh, Balochistan and NWFP. Added to the 6,000 madrassas already registered with the government, this means around 8,200 madrassas in total are now registered. President General Pervez Musharraf announced following the London bombings of July 7 that all madrassas in Pakistan would have to register with the government by December 31. However, the pace of registration has been slow, largely because of the reluctance of the Ittehad-e-Tanzeemat-e-Madaris-e-Deenia (ITMD), an alliance of religious education boards that runs thousands of seminaries in Pakistan.
Senior government officials told Daily Times that the madrassas registered so far constituted âpretty much allâ the independent seminaries in Pakistan, and just the ITMD seminaries remained. However, the officials said the government had tried to cajole cooperation out of the ITMD rather than press it too hard, because the groupâs cooperation was essential to getting a record of all the madrassas in Pakistan.