CPM helped madrasas mushroom: Congress.

: The Congress asked West Bengal chief minister Buddhadev Bhattacharya not to indulge in a polemical battle over madrasas and said it was time that the CPI(M) acknowledged that it was under its patronage that unaffiliated madrasas mushroomed in the state's border areas.

"Those unaffiliated madarasas were certainly set up with the help of the ruling party. Let the government identify the madarasas from where anti-national activities were being carried out," an agency report quoting Pranab Mukherjee said.

Mukherjee also reminded the chief minister that its government had tried to bring Ramakrishna Mission and missionaries school under the government, but did not act against unaffiliated madrasas. In other words, he should walk the talk.

The chief minister is already facing the wrath of his coalition allies who want the government to abandon his anti-madrasa campaign.

To add to his troubles, Muslim oufits have termed as "unsavoury" the remarks made by the chief minister and demanded an apology. According to an agency report, Jamait-e-Ulema accused the West Bengal police of torturing and harassing "innocent" madrasa teachers in the aftermath of the terror attack.

Bhattacharya had, while accusing the ISI of organising the attack on the American Centre and a conspiracy to reduce West Bengal to another J&K, had spoken about the anti-national activities of some of the madrasas and their Arabic-centric curriculum.

He also said that some of the ...