ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) chief Asif Ali Zardari has expressed “concern and dismay” over the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government’s decision to allocate Rs300 million in public funds to a privately-owned seminary in Nowshera, known for its links with the Taliban.

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

The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s (PTI) provincial government had allocated Rs300m to the Darul Uloom Haqqania, run by ‘Father of Taliban’ Maulana Samiul Haq, in the recently-announced provincial budget for the financial year 2016-17.

Mr Zardari’s statement came a day after PTI chairman Imran Khan defended the allocation for the seminary in a TV interview, saying the funds and support “will help seminary students assimilate in our society, bring them into the mainstream and keep them away from radicalisation”.

PTI claims even Benazir gave funds to Samiul Haq’s madressah

This is also a time when the two main opposition parties — PPP and PTI — have been exercising a great deal of restraint against one another for the sake of political unity over the Panama Papers issue.

PPP spokesperson Senator Farhatullah Babar said that Mr Zardari was deeply concerned over the use of public funds to legitimise a private seminary, known for promoting “a private jihad project”.

“The resources should have been spent on human development instead of a seminary, whose claim to fame lies in its promotion of militant Islam and the worldview of Islamic militants. That it should have happened around the time when a Taliban group reportedly claimed responsibility for the assassination of the qawwal Amjad Sabri makes it all the more poignant,” he added.

Mr Babar said the head of the Darul Uloom Haqqania in Nowshera was a known sympathiser and undeclared spokesperson for the Taliban.

During the government-TTP talks in 2014, he said, the Taliban actually nominated the head of the Haqqania seminary to negotiate on their behalf. It is also widely known that a number of militant Taliban leaders have been students of this seminary.

In the wake of the recent death of Mullah Akhtar Mansour, it appeared as if certain elements were reviving the jihadi project, he said.

Explaining this, Mr Babar said that conservative religious parties, led by a banned organisation, had recently held gatherings in Islamabad to protest Mansour’s death. “Now, a privately-owned pro-Taliban madressah has been given Rs300 million,” he said.

Although the National Action Plan calls for disallowing banned outfits from resurrecting themselves under new names, they seem to be openly promoting their militant agenda with impunity, he said, asking, “Is the revival of the jihadi project by design or by default?”

PTI reaction

Reacting to Mr Zardari’s statement, PTI’s information secretary Naeemul Haq said it seemed that Mr Zardari had fallen prey to a “misunderstanding”.

In a statement, Mr Haq said that by allowing madressahs to remain in isolation, they would not be able to bring seminaries to the national mainstream. Irrespective of political affiliations, the services of Darul Uloom Haqqania towards religious education were well known, he said.

The PTI leader was of the view that the seminary should not be victimised just because a few militants had obtained education there. Moreover, he said, former prime minister Benazir Bhutto had not only visited the seminary but had also provided financial resources to it.

He said the PTI’s was the only government which had been working to bring the religious seminaries to mainstream and wanted the enforcement of a uniform education system.

Published in Dawn, June 27th, 2016