Bareilly:

A strange case of bribery has come to light in Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, where an employee of the Minority Welfare Department has asked the victim for a bribe of Rs 1 lakh to move forward a file involving the transfer of a madrasa from Rajpura to Vasundhara village.

Sources said the victim agreed to pay up after the official had stopped a file for six months. But when the victim expressed his inability to make an immediate full payment, the official — Senior Assistant Waqf, Mohammad Asif — gave him an easy way out: Pay in instalments.

But the outcome was not very pleasant for him. He was caught red-handed by the Vigilance Department as he was accepting the first instalment of Rs 18,000.

Mohammad Asif had demanded a bribe of Rs 1 lakh from Aarish from the Madrasa Manjuriya Akhtarul Uloom. The victim is a resident of Thana Bahedi of Bareilly.

When Asif suggested that the payment be made in instalments, the victim complained to the vigilance department.

A vigilance team started investigation and a plan was laid to trap the official at the Minority Welfare Office located in Bareilly’s Vikas Bhawan.

As soon as the accused officer accepted the first instalment of bribe from the complainant, the vigilance team arrested him. A case has been filed and she has been sent to jail.

Lucknow:

The Uttar Pradesh government has set up a special investigation team to investigate into 4,000 madrassas, mostly running along the border with Nepal, which are allegedly receiving funds from abroad, officials said on Monday.

An official said the SIT will examine if the money was used on any illegal activities, like terrorism or forcible religious conversion.

The three-member SIT led by Additional Director General of Police (ADG) Mohit Agarwal of the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) was formed on the instructions of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, a senior official said.

Cyber Cell Superintendent of Police Triveni Singh and Minority Welfare Department Director J Reebha are its other members.

Confirming the setting up of the SIT, ADG Aggarwal said there are about 24,000 madrassas in Uttar Pradesh, of which 16,000 are recognised and 8,000 unrecognised.

About 4,000 madrassas could come under the purview of the investigation and the process of serving notices to them will start this week, an official said.

In the last few years, several madrassas have come up in the areas bordering Nepal, according to officials.

Maharajganj, Siddharthnagar, Shravasti, Balrampur, Bahraich, Lakhimpur Kheri and Pilibhit share their borders with Nepal.

An official said a complaint was earlier received that the funds received from abroad were allegedly used in anti-national activities.

A survey last year found that “most madrassas” in the border areas were receiving large sums of money, but were unable to give an accurate account of it, he said.

The SIT will serve notice to such madrasas and seek information about transactions into Exchange Earners’ Foreign Currency (EEFC) Accounts, he said.

The SIT will then investigate the madrasas that get funds from abroad, questioning them on the source of the money and activities on which it was used, the official added.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)