KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 30: Some 200 Malaysians expelled from Pakistan’s seminaries will not be allowed into local institutions of higher learning, local media said on Tuesday.

Higher Education Minister Shafie Salleh told the Bernama news agency that the students could not be accepted at Malaysian universities because of the different system practised here.

“The problem is that they went there by themselves without consulting the ministry, when in fact they should have pursued similar studies here as our metholodogies are better,” he was quoted as saying.

The Malay Mail tabloid recently reported that police, fearing a backlash, would keep a close eye on the students after they were ordered to leave by Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf, a key Western ally, shortly after the deadly London bombings.

Thirteen Malaysian and six Indonesian students studying in madressahs in Pakistan were arrested in 2003 with suspected links to the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) militant group, and authorities were wary of similar developments, said the source.

“Police are not taking chances as some of the Malaysian students had been linked and caught for militant activities in Pakistan previously,” an unnamed source told the paper.

“There were indications the students were linked to the Kashmiri-based terror group Lashkar-i-Taiba (LET).”

Malaysia has had no major terrorist attacks on its own soil but has detained scores of alleged Muslim militants accused of membership of regional groups such as the JI.—AFP