NEW YORK, July 12: Two teenagers ‘forced’ by their Pakistani father to attend a seminary in Karachi for nearly four years have returned home to Atlanta after a filmmaker intervened to help their return, according to a report in Atlanta Journal Constitution.

Noor Khan, 17, and Mahboob Khan, 16, arrived in Atlanta (Georgia) late on Thursday from Jamia Binoria, a prominent madressah in Karachi.

The boys are featured in a documentary Karachi Kids, by filmmaker Imran Raza, set to be released next week, says AJC.

The boys’ father, Fazal Khan, told AJC he had sent them to the madressah because he wanted them exposed to Islam. He said he had tried to bring them back home “but the boys couldn’t get exit visas”.

“I sent a ticket. But I couldn’t get the paperwork,” Fazal said. “I’m responsible for my children.”

According to AJC, Imran Raza had been working to get the boys home when US Congressman Michael McCaul, a Republican from Texas, got involved. During a July 4 visit to Pakistan, McCaul asked President Pervez Musharraf to help the boys return.

The teens were sent home a few days later.

FBI spokesman Richard Kolko declined to say whether the agency was questioning the Khan brothers.

He said earlier in an e-mailed statement that the FBI had helped coordinate the boys’ return in conjunction with the US State Department.

In a statement posted on the documentary’s website on Thursday, filmmaker Raza said he was grateful that Noor and Mahboob are home.

Raza travelled to Karachi after the July 7, 2005, terrorist attack in London that killed 52 subway and bus passengers. There he found Noor and Mahboob, who had come to the school the previous year.