Pakistan's madrassas: What you need to know

26 June 2012 Last updated at 12:13 ET Help

Pakistan has about 17,000 religious schools, or madrassas, which provide children with free religious education.

This means they have to memorise the Koran from as young as five-years-old.

There are nearly 2m students enrolled in Paksitan's madrassas.

But a 9/11 commission report in the US dubbed them as as "incubators for violent extremism".

BBC Urdu's Asif Farooq explains the increase in their popularity.

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