DUSHANBE, April 23, Asia-Plus - The Tajik law enforcement authorities have shut down an illegal religious school in Dushanbe.

A reliable source at the Ministry of Interior (MoI) said that the school was set up by the five-year student at Tajik Islamic University Sadriddin Habibov.  Habibov organized the school at his apartment in microrayon 33, western part of Dushanbe.   

“During a month, he was illegally teaching 12 children aged 4 to 14 in Koran,” the MoI source said, adding that parents most likely had sent their children to that school voluntarily.  The source refrained from giving further details of the matter, just saying that a prosecutor’s office in the Sino district had instituted criminal proceedings against Habibov.  Investigation is under way. 

We will recall that the Tajik authorities in March shut down dozens of unregistered mosques in Dushanbe.  In Dushnabe’s Sino district alone, 57 such mosques were shuttered.

According to some sources, more than 3,000 mosques currently function in Tajikistan, and some 90 percent of them lack registration.