Pakistan's immigration authorities issued immediate deportation orders on Monday for an American girl, awaiting an uncertain destiny holed up in a religious seminary.
Muna Abanur Mohammed is among the eight students at Jamia Binoria, a leading Madressah in Karachi, who were placed on a blacklist last month by Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, due to the expiration of their religious education visas to study Holy Quran.
"Yes we have received the deportation orders, but we will not hand her over," Maulana Mufti Mohammed Naeem, head of the Madressah, told Deutsche Presse-Aguntur, dpa.
Senior immigration officers at the Federal Investigation Agency FIA), requesting anonymity, said they had no immediate instructions from the Federal authorities to carry out any swoop against the Madressah to remove students holed up inside. Meanwhile, a US Embassy official in Islamabad said they were closely watching the situation.
"We are aware and monitoring the situation," Press Attache Megan Eliss said. A Madressah insider told dpa that the US Embassy was in constant touch with the girl.
So far, out of the eight students, two American teens, known as the Khan brothers, were removed last week by US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Pakistani authorities and sent back to Atlanta, Georgia, following the intervention by US Representative Michael McCaul, a Republican from Texas.
Both brothers were evacuated following a documentary "Karachi Kids" shown by US-based Fox Television, which claimed that teens were forced to study at Jamia Binoria. Naeemi said the Madressah would try its level best to negotiate with the Pakistan government for an extension of Muna's visa. The other five students, who have also been served deportation orders, include four girl students from Thailand and one male from Fiji.