The BJP-led Bengal government has begun mapping the state’s unrecognised, unregistered and privately managed madrasas, and officials say institutions that refuse to share details of their funding, curriculum, teachers and student rolls could face sanctions — including closure orders and, where structures stand on government land, demolition.

“The previous governments never forced them to share their details as they did not want to disturb their vote bank,” said a senior state government official. The official spoke on condition of anonymity as he is not authorised to brief on sensitive matters.

“The new government would not hesitate to issue sanctions if these establishments don’t comply,” he added.

The government directed district magistrates on June 5 to prepare district-wise lists of such madrasas, along with affiliated and recognised but non-aided ones. The DMs have been asked to submit their reports by July 5.

Once the reports reach Nabanna, the authorities of unrecognised or privately run institutions will be asked to furnish details within a stipulated timeframe. Failure to do so will invite sanctions, sources aware of the development said.

The government could also set up a special investigation team to audit the revenue streams of non-compliant madrasas — a course of action that has precedent: an SIT formed by the Uttar Pradesh government recommended the closure of more than 8,000 unauthorised madrasas after their funding sources could not be established.

The scale of the task is formidable. No one in the current Bengal government can offer a reliable count of the unregistered and khariji madrasas operating in Bengal. A retired bureaucrat, however, said that an intelligence report from 2015 put the figure at around 11,000 across the state.

The security dimension lends the exercise particular urgency. After the 2014 Khagragarh blast in Burdwan, the National Investigation Agency claimed that terror organisations such as Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh were operating in
Bengal through certain khariji madrasas. The agency’s chargesheet alleged that militants were using these institutions to radicalise youths and even train women in violent jihadi ideology.

“Central agencies repeatedly send reports to Nabanna stating that cross-border groups could turn the khariji madrasas into breeding grounds of militants,” said a source.

Bengal’s madrasas fall into two broad categories. The first, formal madrasas, includes 628 state-aided institutions — 615 Bengali-medium and 13 English-medium — whose teachers’ salaries and development funds are paid by the state government, and which follow the state curriculum.

A second sub-group of 601 registered but unaided madrasas follows a state-approved curriculum but receives no direct aid, though it is eligible for MP and MLA local area development funds.

A third sub-group — unregistered and unaided — is classed as ”formal” because its curriculum broadly mirrors that of the recognised madrasas rather than being exclusively religion-based. It was this category that first surfaced when some of these institutions applied for recognition in 2012; how many more are operating today is precisely what the current survey hopes to establish.

The government-aided madrasas and the registered unaided madrasas, which are part of the first category, follow the curriculum of the West Bengal boards of secondary and higher secondary education. Additionally, they teach two subjects: Arabic and theology. Senior government officials said the curriculum of the government-aided and registered unaided madrasas offered a balanced blend of moral teaching-learning (theology and Islamic culture) and modern education (science and technology). The curriculum was modernised following recommendations fromthe Madrasa Education Committee, which then chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee set up in 2001 with Bengal’s former governor A.R. Kidwai at its helm.

The second broad category is the khariji madrasas: traditional Islamic seminaries functioning outside any formal board, managed mainly by mosque committees, waqf bodies and ulema networks. Their curriculum is oriented towards producing qualified moulavis, and most are aligned with specific schools of Islamic thought — Deobandi, Barelvi, Jamaat-e-Islami Hind or Ahle Hadis.

In the 141-page report submitted in 2002, Kidwai stressed the need for affiliation of unrecognised madrasas, but recommended that recognition should be granted to such institutions only if they met the standards laid down by the government.

While suggesting the formation of a special task force to promote madrasa education in the state, Kidwai had advocated upgrading the standard of the madrasa board to ensure that students passing from these institutions were eligible to appear in competitive examinations like the joint entrance.

The unrecognised madrasas had come under the radar of earlier governments too, but political considerations consistently blocked action. In 2002, then chief minister Bhattacharjee had stated — on the basis of intelligence reports, according to a retired bureaucrat who served in the administration at the time — that certain unrecognised madrasas in the border districts were operating as hubs for anti-national activities and potential ISI centres.

He was forced to retreat after Islamic organisations and Left Front allies turned on him, eventually claiming he had been misquoted.

The picture changed little under the Trinamool Congress. After coming to power in 2011, then chief minister Mamata Banerjee announced that her government would grant recognition to 10,000 madrasas across the state.

Officials acknowledge the move had a certain shrewdness to it: any madrasa applying for recognition would have to share its details with the government. In practice, only around 1,400 unrecognised madrasas applied, of which 235 were given recognition. A further 366 were recognised in the run-up to the 2026 elections, a move that originated from Mamata herself.

According to sources in the minority affairs and madrasa education department, the then chief minister wanted to recognise around 700 madrasas before the polls to send a signal to the minority electorate. The department proceeded cautiously, and after a thorough investigation found that only 366 met the bar: following the West Bengal board’s curriculum, possessing their own structures, and able to account for their funding.

The vast majority of unrecognised madrasas, however, chose not to apply at all — unwilling to open their books to the state.

Not everyone in the madrasa community is opposed to scrutiny. A political leader who runs a madrasa in Murshidabad told The Telegraph, on condition of anonymity, that while the state could not close madrasas arbitrarily, periodic checks were acceptable.

“We don’t need any recognition from the government to operate. But the government can check our curriculum, funding pattern and student welfare periodically. We are ready to cooperate — we have nothing to hide,”he said.