40 girls rescued from toilet in unregistered Bahraich madrasa
Sub-divisional magistrate (SDM) Payagpur, Ashwini Kumar Pandey, said the team had acted on repeated complaints about the functioning of the institution. “When we reached for inspection, the madrasa operators resisted and tried to prevent us from going upstairs. With police support, we found a locked toilet on the terrace. Once the door was opened by female police personnel, the girls started coming out one by one,” Pandey said.
A district administration inspection in Pahalwara village under Payagpur tehsil of Bahraich on Wednesday led to the rescue of 40 minor girls who were found locked inside a toilet of an unregistered madrasa operating in a three-storey building.
Sub-divisional magistrate (SDM) Payagpur, Ashwini Kumar Pandey, said the team had acted on repeated complaints about the functioning of the institution. “When we reached for inspection, the madrasa operators resisted and tried to prevent us from going upstairs. With police support, we found a locked toilet on the terrace. Once the door was opened by female police personnel, the girls started coming out one by one,” Pandey said.
District minority welfare officer (DMO) Mohammad Khalid confirmed that the madrasa, identified as Jamia Ghazia Gulshan-e-Ghausulwara at Patihar Chauraha in Payagpur, had been running illegally for nearly three years. “The management could not produce any valid documents. We demanded records, but nothing has been provided to date,” he said. According to Khalid, a 2023 survey had already listed the madrasa among 495 unrecognised institutions in Bahraich.
Responding to the discovery of girls inside a locked toilet, Khalid said the students and teachers panicked when police arrived. “They locked themselves inside the toilet, apparently out of fear, and to create an impression that the madrasa’s activities had already ceased,” he added.
Following the inspection, the district administration ordered the madrasa to be shut down. Officials said all the girls were safely handed over to their parents after the raid.
The madrasa, run exclusively for girls, also provided residential facilities. “There were eight rooms where the girls lived and studied, and some children were day scholars from nearby villages. A teacher, Tafseen Fatima, produced registration forms for 40 girls but admitted that the official records were with her father, Khalil Ahmed, who operates the madrasa,” Khalid said.
