KARACHI, Dec 30: The imminent crackdown on foreign students of religious seminaries after the December 31 deadline would amount to pushing religious circles against the wall and would create further instability in the country, feared a number of religious scholars while talking to Dawn on Friday.

According to an official estimate, there are around 1,400 foreign students in the country, 650 of them being enrolled in Karachi alone.

The government has already announced cancellation of the visas issued to all foreign students studying at madressahs across the country, and has announced a plan to deport them.

However, sources in law-enforcement agencies said that they had, so far, not received any clear directives for action against these foreign students after the deadline. The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) might be assigned the task of carrying out raids if the government was serious in deporting them, the sources said.

The major madressahs in the city have vowed to resist the expulsion campaign, saying that religious leaders would court arrest rather than forcing the students to return home.

Secretary Information of the Binnoria University International, Site, Maulana Ghulam Rasool told Dawn that madressahs were determined not to send back their foreign students. “We are talking with the government on the issue,” he added.

He said that a future course of action would be announced on January 1 at the convention of the Wafaqul Madaris in Islamabad.

He pointed out that there were two categories of foreign students — those who are Pakistanis by origin but have foreign passports also, and those mainly belonging to Thailand, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, etc. “Several of these students are fasting and offering special prayers in this testing time.”

Mufti Muneebur Rehman, questioned the government’s wisdom by saying: “Why has it chosen confrontation with religious circles at this crucial stage when meetings between the two sides are being held in a cordial atmosphere? He hoped that the government of Sindh would not resort to order raids on religious schools as it would aggravate the situation further.

He recalled that on Thursday last, a meeting between the Wafaqul Madaris and Federal Minister for Religious Affairs Ijazul Haq had taken place.

“At that time, we had agreed to the proposal on registration of religious schools, and further development was being expected in the next phase. However, Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao issued orders to IGPs in connection with the foreign students.

Mufti Muneeb also pointed out that owing to the tension arising out of the recent confrontation between the government and religious seminaries, a large number of foreign students had already left the country voluntarily and many others had been asked by their parents to return home. “The flow of foreign students into the country has already stopped,” he said, adding that there was no need for the government to indulge in a confrontation with seminaries at this stage.

“I think Ijazul Haq is going smoothly as far as his handling of the religious seminaries is concerned,” he said, and suggested to President Pervez Musharraf to assign a full time and fully authorized minister for religious affairs.

Qari Iqbal, a spokesman for the Jamia Binnoria, New Town, stated that in the last week, the Ministry of Interior had issued visas to seven students of this institution. Only two days back, he added, a few more visas were issued.

He said that the foreign student already enrolled in the local seminaries should be allowed to continue their studies, and if the government deported them, this could earn a bad name for the country.

“All the students studying at our institution have proper education visas,”, Qari Iqbal said, adding that a future course of action would be decided at the Sunday convention of the Wafaqul Madris.

A senior FIA official told Dawn that the agency had not been directed to take any action against those who would fail to meet the deadline. He said that the FIA did not have adequate staff to undertake such a big crackdown.