The chairperson of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) says that the commission had never called for the closure of Madrassas. His clarification is nothing but an act of pulling the wool over the eyes. Technically he may not have used the term “the closure” of the Madrassas, but the real aim of stopping the state funding to the Madrassas, as any layman can understand, is the closure of the Madrassas under the pretext of implementing RTE Act. Last week, NCPCR had written to the states and UTs to stop funding the Madrassa Boards citing non-compliance of the Madrassas with the Right to Education Act. The Madrassas (Arabic term for Schools) in north India are a sort of hybrid education system where both Islamic studies and modern education are imparted to the students. In most of the remote villages in north India, there are barely any government-supported educational facilities and, Madrassas run by the Madrassa Boards are the alternative that works as a solace to the children for their primary education. Undisputably, this service, within its limited capacity and resources, is in full compliance with the RTE that mandates compulsory primary education for children. Children who are unable to access and afford educational facilities that are far from their villages and costly, get primary education through this facility. The effort to shut down the system under the guise of non-compliance with the RTE is not so innocuous, but part of a dark agenda of denying poor Muslim children the primary education mandated by the RTE Act. It will be worth remembering the hue and cry that stormed Kerala when children from north India who were being brought to the orphanages in Kerala to pursue their education were taken into custody by the Kerala Police. The politicians, police, and the media witch-hunted the children and the Muslim community for months, portraying the incident as human trafficking. Both this witch-hunt and the present moves to shut down the Madrassas have the same aim of denying education to Muslim children.When there are allegations or complaints about the functioning of a system, what is required is sincere efforts to improvise the system, not steps to shut down the system using such complaints or allegations as a cover. SDPI has taken the issue seriously and is conducting strong protests across the country against the surreptitious moves to infringe on the educational rights of Muslim children, and, it will intensify the protests until the controversial recommendation is withdrawn