KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 18 — Religious schools in Malaysia are not recruitment grounds for terrorist group Islamic State (IS) or places where extremism is taught, an association overseeing the welfare of these centres’ students has said.

Datuk Mustapa Othman, president of Pertubuhan Kebajikan Pelajar-Pelajar Tahfiz Malaysia (Tahfiz), said he hoped that the public will not continue to have a negative perception of such tahfiz centres or centres where students studies the al-Quran.

“Not true that we spread the terrorists’ ideology, madrasah-madrasah dan sekolah-sekolah pondok (religious schools) were set up for the purpose of memorising the al-Quran and hadis (sayings of Prophet Muhammad).

“Furthermore the knowledge concerning terrorism is not something that is taught in Islam and we firmly reject such ideology,” he was quoted telling local daily Sinar Harian.

Mustapa acknowledged that many have associated IS with Islam and did not discount the possibility that there may be attempts to use religious schools to propagate terrorism, but said that local enforcement officers are constantly monitoring to avoid misuse of religious schools which he said were mushrooming in numbers.

“Under our association, we deny that has happened, there is no other curriculum aside from the knowledge of al-Quran,” he said when refuting that the ideology of terrorists are taught in tahfiz schools.

He acknowledged that many of the teachers at tahfiz centres had graduated from madrasah and sekolah pondok, he said that they have been vetted by state Islamic departments.

According to Sinar Harian, the police have previously said they were monitoring all avenues which IS could use to recruit new members, including institutes of higher learning, political parties and sekolah pondok.

Following last week’s deadly attacks in Jakarta which killed eight individuals and which IS has claimed as its attack, police in Malaysia have beefed up security.

Sinar Harian reported that Kuala Lumpur police have doubled the police personnel deployed with focus on shopping outlets, entertainment outlets, embassies and government buildings, while Selangor police confirmed that security will be tightened at public spots and entrance and exit points such as jetties, ports, KLIA, KLIA2 and the Subang Sky Park airport.