KOHAT, Jan 9: The government has directed the administrators of more than 1,750 religious seminaries in the NWFP to stop admitting Afghan children and elders and other foreigners or they will face closure of their institutions, Dawn has learnt on good authority.

The Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI-F) directly controls 75 per cent of the seminaries in which majority of the students are Afghans.

There was earlier no restriction on admission of refugees to the seminaries, but in the wake of entry of Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters from across the border into Pakistan, the government has imposed a strict ban on their admissions to the religious schools across the country.

The reports being submitted to government agencies say that the students, who went to Afghanistan for Jihad from these seminaries, may return and become a potential threat to the internal security of the country.

The government has also planned to screen students, who either do not possess valid identification documents, or have been found involved in activities other than religious education.

The sources privy to the discussions made at the meetings being held by the interior ministry about the future of the Madaris said the government would close down all those seminaries, which had maintained any kind of links with terrorist activities and sectarian violence.

The rule would apply to all if the patrons of these seminaries were Shias, Sunnis or had political affiliations with the Jamaat-i-Islami, the JUI-F,

JUI-S, the Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan, the Awami National Party and the Pakistan People’s Party, or if they were run by individuals everywhere in the country.

There are 300,000 students in these seminaries, which have been contributing to the rising ratio of joblessness.

The lot qualify to be appointed as Islamyat teachers in government schools and as Imams of mosques, but due to a very slow pace of construction of new mosques, they have been joining extremist organizations.

A source in the interior ministry told Dawn on Tuesday that law enforcing agencies had been asked to compile data about those youths, who had been jobless since they completed their education from the seminaries.