Private school funded by Muslim villager razed in India

NEW DELHI, India (MNTV) — Indian authorities have demolished a privately funded village school built by a Muslim resident in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh after it was labelled an “illegal madrasa” — an allegation that has increasingly been used in recent years as a trigger to target Muslim-run institutions, even when projects are secular, lawful, and supported by local communities.

The demolition took place in Dhabha village in Betul district’s Bhainsdehi area, where Abdul Naim had been constructing a small school with his own savings. Naim said he invested around 2 million Indian rupees ($22,000) to build a facility intended to offer education from nursery to Class 8 under the Madhya Pradesh Board of Secondary Education.

The village has a population of about 2,000 people, with only three Muslim families, residents said. Naim said the school was conceived to address an acute shortage of educational facilities in the area. At the time the controversy erupted, the building was still under construction — no classes had begun, no students were enrolled, and no signboard had been installed.

According to villagers, three days before the demolition, rumors began circulating that Naim was running an unauthorized religious school. Residents said the claim was false and that no religious activity was taking place at the site.

Following the rumors, the sub-divisional magistrate (SDM), a revenue officer, and the local police station in-charge visited the site. Villagers said the officials inspected the premises, found no evidence of religious instruction, and left after advising Naim to obtain a no-objection certificate (NOC) from the village council.

Despite this, the village council issued a demolition notice on January 11, ordering the structure to be torn down. Naim said when he went to the council office to submit documents and seek clarification, he was asked to return later, even as the demolition order remained in effect.

Naim said he holds valid land documents and had applied on December 30 to the state school education department for permission to operate the institution. He said he was unaware that a separate village-level NOC was required and offered to pay any fine if procedural lapses were identified.

When villagers protested the demolition notice, the council issued the NOC, but the decision to raze the building was not reversed. Naim said that later the same day, the SDM told him there was “pressure from above” and that the school would have to be demolished regardless.

Residents appealed to officials, arguing that if any technical violation existed, it could be resolved through penalties rather than destruction. “If the building is demolished, our children will lose a chance to study,” villagers said.

When the order was not withdrawn even after the NOC, villagers planned to travel nearly 80 kilometers to meet the district collector at a public hearing. On Tuesday, police stopped hundreds of villagers en route and allowed them to proceed hours later. Villagers said that while the collector spoke of ordering an inquiry, the SDM was simultaneously overseeing the demolition of the school building.

“This was never a madrasa,” Naim said. “I applied for an MP Board school, not a religious institution. There are only three Muslim households here. Who would I even run a madrasa for?”

Local youth leader Sonu Panse said the school was being built with village consent to meet educational needs. “There was no religious activity here. A false rumor became the basis for government action,” he said.

Observers say the case reflects a broader pattern in parts of India, where allegations of “illegal madrasas” are increasingly used to justify administrative action against Muslim-run initiatives.

Researchers and civil society groups note that the label often triggers swift state intervention, even when institutions are secular, privately funded, and locally supported, turning suspicion into policy action.

The demolition has also drawn attention to wider gaps in rural education infrastructure. BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh has more than 83,000 government schools serving Classes 1 to 8, yet over 200 reportedly operate without permanent buildings, many under trees or temporary sheds. Nearly 2,000 schools lack boys’ toilets, while 1,700 lack toilets for girls, according to official data.

Against this backdrop, villagers said the destruction of a privately funded school was not merely the loss of bricks and mortar, but a blow to faith in education itself — made sharper, they said, by the way a community initiative was reduced to suspicion through the branding of an “illegal madrasa.”