NGR Regime’s Crusade Against Madrasas
Dr. Ameer Ali
Over the last two years, and since that Easter Sunday infamy of April 2019, ultra-nationalist politicians and their apparatchiks, the Secretary General of Bodu Bala Sena, and certain sections of the Sangha had joined forces to demand the closure of all madrasas in the country. Just to please these agitators, the Yahapalana regime decided to register all madrasas with the government, which did not satisfy this mob. The Nandasena Gotabaya Rajapaksa (NGR) regime, which is facing crises on multiple fronts, politically, economically, in public health and foreign relations, has now embarked on a crusade against madrasas. Accordingly, the Minister of Public Security, Admiral (retired) Sarath Weerasekera (SW), either on the order of President NGR or in consultation with him, has decided to close down around 1000 elementary Quranic Schools and bring the rest under some form of government control, the details of which are not clear yet. T