KARACHI, 21 March 2006 — The government is weighing a proposal from a body representing around 14,000 madrasas to allow some major seminaries to admit foreign students, sources in the Religious Affairs Ministry said.
“At present, the authorities have not defined any parameters to regulate the affairs of foreign students at madrasas and have only deferred the decision to expel them from Pakistan. But seminary officials have recently sought government’s permission to allow some madrasas to admit foreigners,” a senior official at the ministry said.
The proposal would be discussed early next month between the government and the Ittehad Tanzeematul Madaris Al-Deeniya Pakistan (ITMDP), a grouping of five religious education boards.
President Gen. Pervez Musharraf had ordered the expulsion of all foreign students from different seminaries across the country after the July 7 bombings in London. The deadline for the expulsion was Dec. 31 last year but due to protests and warnings by some madrasa officials, the government deferred its plans to expel the students by force.
Since then, officials have twice warned seminaries to expel their foreign pupils saying non-compliance would trigger legal action.
The Religious Affairs Ministry official said that the government could accept the ITMDP’s proposal, as it could be easier for the authorities to keep a watch on the movement of foreign students in limited locations.
