Two Nepali religious students have left Pakistan owing to intensification of deportation of foreign religious students by Pakistani authorities in an apparent bid to contain extremism, news reports said Thursday.

Nepali nationals Ahamad Ali, 20, and Shabnum Shagufa, 19, who were studying at Jamia Neemia Madrassa in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore, decided to return to Nepal after authorities warned that foreign students at Madrasas could be arrested if they failed to leave the country before September, CNN reported.

Amahad Ali leaves his institution in Lahore

Amahad Ali leaves his institution in Lahore Photo Courtesy AP
“I feel sad that I could not complete my education,” CNN quoted Ali as telling the Associated Press on Wednesday before leaving Pakistan. Ali said Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf had “wrongly punished foreign students.”

It is not known which part of Nepal the two students came from.

Ali, who had been studying at the Madrassa for the last four years, reacted: “We are peace-loving people. We are against terrorism.” “What was our fault? Does the government have any charge against us?” He was supposed to stay in Pakistan for four more years to complete his course.

Sarfraz Naeemi, head of the Madrassa, which teaches both boys and girls in a segregated environment, asked Ali and Shagufa to go home because the Madrassa administration wanted to respect new government policy [about Madrassas].

Their departure comes following the pledges by General Musharraf to clamp down religious extremism in his country.

Since 1980s, Madrassas have been a recruiting ground for Islamic militant groups fighting in Afghanistan and Kashmir, but they also provide an education for hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis poorly served by the state schooling system, CNN said.