Three Uttar Pradesh government officials visited the Darul Uloom Nadwatul Ulama, the Islamic seminary in Lucknow, to gather details such as the teacher-student ratio, infrastructure and source of funding, and declared that the nearly 124-year-old institute is “unrecognised” by the state board of madrasa education.

Sone Kumar, the district minority welfare officer who was in the team, said: “This madrasa is not recognised by the UPBME (Uttar Pradesh Board of Madrasa Education). We were at the seminary to collect certain details. Our job will be over once we submit the report to the government. The purpose of the survey is to upgrade and modernise the education system.”

However, Abdul Aziz Nadvi, vice-principal of the madrasa, told reporters: “We are recognised by several bodies and we have been functioning since 1898 in a transparent manner with the support of donations from various known sources. We are an open book that anybody can read. We don’t have any secret and would love to share whatever the government asks for. We are here to cooperate with the government or anybody else who shows interest in us.”

Nadvi added: “We impart education from the school to the postgraduation level in science, including computer science, as well as arts. Besides Arabic and Urdu, our medium of education is in English since 2018. We specialise in theology….”

Last month, the Yogi Adityanath government had ordered the survey of madrasas across the state. Later, an order was issued by the minority welfare department to survey the unaided madrasas.

The All India Muslim Personal Law Board and the Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind have said the survey is an instance of “highhandedness of the state government that wants to look for a reason to harass Islamic educational institutions”.

An official of the minority welfare department said: “The government has already blocked the funds of many aided madrasas.”

Maulana Khalid Saifullah Rahmani, general secretary of the AIMPLB, said: “The government has been claiming that the madrasas produce terrorists but all their investigations in the past have proved them wrong. The government would have ordered the survey of all the religious and educational institutions instead of only madrasas if their intention was good.”

According to the website of Nadwatul, its different courses are recognised by institutes and establishments such as the Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, the government of Uttar Pradesh, Saudi Arabia’s ministry of higher education, Aligarh Muslim University, Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University, Kashmir University, the government of Maharashtra, Lucknow University, Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti Urdu, Arabic-Farsi University, Lucknow, and the government of India’s National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions.