By Tariq Maqbool
MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan (Reuters) – The government of Pakistan-administered Kashmir has closed all religious seminaries in the region for 10 days, officials said on Thursday, citing fears they would be targeted by Indian strikes following a deadly attack on tourists in Indian Kashmir.
Islamabad says it has credible intelligence that India intends to launch military action soon, with New Delhi alleging that the attack on tourists was carried out by Pakistani nationals with ties to Islamist organisations based there.
The director of Pakistani Kashmir’s Department of Religious Affairs, Hafiz Nazir Ahmad, told Reuters that security officials feared Indian forces may target seminaries and label them as militant training centres.
The notification seen by Reuters, dated April 30, only cited a heatwave as the reason for the closure.
“Right now, we are facing two kinds of heat — one from the weather and the other from (Indian Prime Minister) Modi,” Ahmad said of the notification, saying they did not mention the risk of attacks in a bid to avoid panic.
India’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. India has previously targeted sites in Pakistan alleging they were bases of Islamist militants close to the Kashmir border.
“We held a meeting yesterday in which it was unanimously decided not to put innocent children at risk,” Ahmad said. The President’s Office of Pakistani Kashmir also said the closure was due to “precautionary reasons.”
There are 445 registered seminaries with over 26,000 students enrolled in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, according to the religious affairs department.
The seminaries – locally known as madrasas – are Islamic educational institutions run by religious organisations, providing cheap, often free, alternatives to regular schools.
Pakistan has said it will respond “assuredly and decisively” to any military action from India, raising the spectre of war between the two nuclear-armed countries.
Kashmir, a Muslim-majority Himalayan region, is claimed in full, but ruled in parts by both India and Pakistan, and has been the site of two wars and multiple skirmishes.
Many Muslims in Indian Kashmir have long resented what they see as heavy-handed rule by India. In 1989, an insurgency by Muslim separatists began. India poured troops into the region and tens of thousands of people have been killed.
India accuses Pakistan of arming and training militants, which Islamabad denies, saying it offers only moral and diplomatic support. Seminaries have been criticised for radicalising youth towards Islamist extremism.
(Reporting Tariq Maqbool in Muzaffarabad; Additional reporting by Charlotte Greenfield in Islamabad and Shivam Patel in New Delhi; Writing by Gibran Peshimam; Editing by Ros Russell)
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