A rally condemns terrorism in Mumbai on Monday. (PTI)

New Delhi, July 18: The Mumbai blasts have unleashed a campaign of hate against a school that had issued a fatwa on terror in any form.

Abdul Khalique Madrasi, the chief of Dar-ul Uloom Deoband, today wrote to home minister P. Chidambaram, drawing his attention to an online campaign that alleged the seminary’s link with “Talibani terror”.

Madrasi said he received an email that alleged the seminary was urging young Muslims to turn against the state and indulge in “unbecoming, anti-national and communal” activities.

Some Marathi and Hindi newspapers from Nagpur, he added, had also carried malicious reports against his institution.

For the seminary, the “wild” and “unsubstantiated” allegations are all the more galling after its February 2008 step that denounced all acts of terror as un-Islamic.

“We don’t have any link or association with terrorism, terrorists, whatsoever,” the seminary had said in the presence of thousands of scholars. “We reject terrorism in all its forms and manifestations. Terrorism completely negates the teachings of Islam, which is the faith of love and peace.”

The unprecedented declaration had served to clear the air after several terror outfits had claimed they were following the Deoband school’s teachings.

Although the Deoband move to dub as un-Islamic all acts of extremism was not new, the declaration was welcomed by all, including the BJP.

Madrasi said historical facts had been ignored about the 145-year-old seminary’s role in the country’s freedom struggle and the “secular” traditions it has been following.

“Way back in 1912, when Deobandi scholars gave a call for independence from the British, they named Raja Mahendra Pratap as ‘president’ of a ‘free India’. Moreover, the writings of historians Dr Tara Chand, Dr Ishwari Prasad and Dr K.M. Panicker testify to our nationalist and secular credentials,” he said.

Later, when the British relinquished their control over the subcontinent, the Deobandis sided with Mahatma Gandhi against Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s Muslim League. Like Gandhi, the then rector of Deoband, Maulana Hussain Ahmad Madni, had bitterly opposed the idea of partitioning India.

Madrasi said he chose to go public on the “smear campaign” as it was causing a deep sense of anxiety within the community. “The home minister must find out the identity of the culprits spreading the mischief and punish them,” he said.

The Deoband chief said any terrorist activity that targeted innocent people contradicted Islam’s concept of peace.