‘I want to cry’: Afghan medical students in Pakistan face expulsion fear

[mythbuster]

Imagine going to the USA, UK, or Australia on a student visa, and before you can finish your degree, the government decides to deport you over some weak or unfair excuse. How would that feel?

I personally think that in Pakistan, we often let ethnic divisions shape how we treat one another. We assume we’re better than others, and we struggle to show compassion yet we expect compassion when we are the ones in need.

Some of you may not agree with me but I believe that educated Afghans should be given long‑term visas so they can integrate into Pakistani society and culture instead of being isolated. Supporting their integration would benefit both them and us.

If it was up to me, I would have given these Afghan students temporary visas so they could complete their degrees. Charge them international student fees if necessary, but at least allow them to finish their education.

Educated Afghan are even worse enemies of Pakistan... Preaching morality is the easiest job in the world , it has no competition.

 

[Pakistanithinktank]

Educated Afghan are even worse enemies of Pakistan... Preaching morality is the easiest job in the world , it has no competition.

I’ve addressed every point, even giving the example of Bengali‑speaking Pakistanis who have lived in Karachi’s slums for more than 50 years but were denied NICs because the government chose not to recognize them. Despite decades in Pakistan, the state has failed to acknowledge their existence. To me, this reflects a feudal mindset, one that treats certain communities as inherently lower class. When a government alienates its own long standing residents, it’s unrealistic to expect fair treatment toward anyone else.
I haven’t mentioned about Biharis living in refugee camps in Bangladesh that Pakistani government failed to bring them

 

[PK781]

I’ve addressed every point, even giving the example of Bengali‑speaking Pakistanis who have lived in Karachi’s slums for more than 50 years but were denied NICs because the government chose not to recognize them. Despite decades in Pakistan, the state has failed to acknowledge their existence. To me, this reflects a feudal mindset, one that treats certain communities as inherently lower class. When a government alienates its own long standing residents, it’s unrealistic to expect fair treatment toward anyone else.
I haven’t mentioned about Biharis living in refugee camps in Bangladesh that Pakistani government failed to bring them

big difference between afghans and any bengali/biharis.
BIG difference
Can't be considered equal. One are unwanted refugees from war.

the others should be naturalized and given CNIC(Bengali Pakistanis and Biharis)

afghans can go to india or wherever, WHY are they coming here? WHY? Whats their obsession with coming to Pak using whatever. They can **** off to india.

Sorry bud, doesn't matter our own issues, but those afghans cannot be tolerated anymore, the consensus is obvious and you ain't able to change that. The nation is sick and tired of those tribal dumb savages who want to come and invade us.

No sympathies anymore given their hatred and their terrorism against innocent Pakistani civilians and law enforcement. Time to smoke the talibunnies and their supporters

 

[r3alist]

You keep dodging the issue

This is everything but the issue

All the drugs, refugees, militants, contraband, and weapons are smuggled into Pakistan from Afghanistan with the participation of the army, police

It's been a slow few years, hopefully operations pick up

Your focus on cursing

Never cursed,I take no personal satisfaction in personal predicaments

I have NO compulsion to make this my personal charity case, because you start charity in your own family.

 

[r3alist]

Educated Afghan are even worse enemies of Pakistan... Preaching morality is the easiest job in the world , it has no competition.

Liberal afghans support the Taliban, in the West

Meanwhile actual Afghans regress to the iron age

This is the death spiral of hyper tribalism


They are very close to the Iranian monarchists, they choose being consumed by hate actively, though I suppose some were driven out so perhaps it's understandable, however they atleast cherish education and being productive members of society,

 

[Pakistanithinktank]

big difference between afghans and any bengali/biharis.
BIG difference
Can't be considered equal. One are unwanted refugees from war.

the others should be naturalized and given CNIC(Bengali Pakistanis and Biharis)

afghans can go to india or wherever, WHY are they coming here? WHY? Whats their obsession with coming to Pak using whatever. They can **** off to india.

Sorry bud, doesn't matter our own issues, but those afghans cannot be tolerated anymore, the consensus is obvious and you ain't able to change that. The nation is sick and tired of those tribal dumb savages who want to come and invade us.

No sympathies anymore given their hatred and their terrorism against innocent Pakistani civilians and law enforcement. Time to smoke the talibunnies and their supporters

Your argument collapses the moment history enters the room.

You call Afghans “invaders” and “unwanted refugees,” but conveniently forget that Pakistan hosted Afghan refugees for decades with substantial international financial and humanitarian support.

You remember the refugees.

You forget the war, geopolitics, foreign funding, and Pakistan’s own role in Afghanistan.

That selective memory makes serious debate exhausting.

Pakistan was not a helpless bystander. Its establishment played a major role in Afghanistan’s geopolitical and militant landscape for decades. Whatever justification existed for those policies, they had consequences.

You cannot help shape a regional crisis and then pretend its consequences arrived from nowhere.

And stop confusing Afghans with militants.

A terrorist is not an ethnicity.
A criminal is not a nationality.
A militant organization does not represent every Afghan civilian.

If someone commits a crime, prosecute them. If someone is a security threat, deal with them. But blaming millions of civilians for the actions of individuals is not national security.

It is collective prejudice.

Then comes the hypocrisy.

You demand justice for Bengalis, Biharis, or other marginalized communities while arguing that an entirely different ethnic group should be treated as inherently unwelcome.

What is the principle?

If citizenship, documentation, security, residency, and contribution matter, apply those standards consistently.

If ethnicity determines who deserves dignity, then stop pretending this is about principle.

And yes, Pakistan has every right to control its borders. It has every right to deport people who have no legal right to remain. It has every right to protect its citizens.

But border control does not require ethnic hatred.

That distinction matters.

What is especially exhausting is debating people with selective memory, people who remember every fact that supports their argument and conveniently forget everything that complicates it.

They remember terrorism but forget geopolitics.

They remember refugees but forget the wars.

They remember the economic burden but forget international assistance.

They remember crimes committed by individuals but forget the millions who committed none.

History isn’t a menu where you choose only the facts you like.

Pakistan needs a serious refugee and immigration policy based on law, security, documentation, economics, and humanity.

Not ethnic scapegoating.

Not historical amnesia.

Not social-media nationalism.

If your argument only works after history has been selectively edited, the problem isn’t history.

The problem is your argument.

Also, don’t forget that Pakistan sent thousands of Sindhis as Afghan refugees to Saudi Arabia during Soviet war. As a result, there is a beggar mafia from Sindh in Saudi Arabia.

I will continue to open history books and give you facts that you cannot deny.

 

[Master Chief]

Your argument collapses the moment history enters the room.

You call Afghans “invaders” and “unwanted refugees,” but conveniently forget that Pakistan hosted Afghan refugees for decades with substantial international financial and humanitarian support.

You remember the refugees.

You forget the war, geopolitics, foreign funding, and Pakistan’s own role in Afghanistan.

That selective memory makes serious debate exhausting.

Pakistan was not a helpless bystander. Its establishment played a major role in Afghanistan’s geopolitical and militant landscape for decades. Whatever justification existed for those policies, they had consequences.

You cannot help shape a regional crisis and then pretend its consequences arrived from nowhere.

And stop confusing Afghans with militants.

A terrorist is not an ethnicity.
A criminal is not a nationality.
A militant organization does not represent every Afghan civilian.

If someone commits a crime, prosecute them. If someone is a security threat, deal with them. But blaming millions of civilians for the actions of individuals is not national security.

It is collective prejudice.

Then comes the hypocrisy.

You demand justice for Bengalis, Biharis, or other marginalized communities while arguing that an entirely different ethnic group should be treated as inherently unwelcome.

What is the principle?

If citizenship, documentation, security, residency, and contribution matter, apply those standards consistently.

If ethnicity determines who deserves dignity, then stop pretending this is about principle.

And yes, Pakistan has every right to control its borders. It has every right to deport people who have no legal right to remain. It has every right to protect its citizens.

But border control does not require ethnic hatred.

That distinction matters.

What is especially exhausting is debating people with selective memory, people who remember every fact that supports their argument and conveniently forget everything that complicates it.

They remember terrorism but forget geopolitics.

They remember refugees but forget the wars.

They remember the economic burden but forget international assistance.

They remember crimes committed by individuals but forget the millions who committed none.

History isn’t a menu where you choose only the facts you like.

Pakistan needs a serious refugee and immigration policy based on law, security, documentation, economics, and humanity.

Not ethnic scapegoating.

Not historical amnesia.

Not social-media nationalism.

If your argument only works after history has been selectively edited, the problem isn’t history.

The problem is your argument.

Also, don’t forget that Pakistan sent thousands of Sindhis as Afghan refugees to Saudi Arabia during Soviet war. As a result, there is a beggar mafia from Sindh in Saudi Arabia.

I will continue to open history books and give you facts that you cannot deny.

Yes. Amnesia is a problem.

Have you forgotten the reason this thread was opened?

Afghans were - so it seems - ungrateful for the educational assistance given to them by Pakistan.

A country that BARS females from becoming doctors has the luxury of sending males and females here for their studies. Half of those qualified doctors would return to help Afghans. Half would have to practice medicine abroad one day but would still then send huge remittances home to Afghanistan.

I don't know what is actually wrong with you that you spout Bharati gibberish that somehow Pakistan "created Talibs saar to occupy Kabul saar!". For decades, we have actually done everything to help these clowns achieve independence and freedom while also funding their development.

Pakistan’s Positive Contribution to Afghanistan’s Rebuilding and Rehabilitation goes Unnoticed? - Afghan Studies Center

January 01, 2020 To assist in Afghanistan’s rehabilitation and socio-economic development, Pakistan has extended its financial and technical support to

www.afghanstudiescenter.org

This was done in our interests as much as in theirs, i.e. to enhance ties with an immediate neighbour with whom a positive trading relationship may endure.

This strategy failed, not because we behaved with some hostility towards them or harmed them in some way, but simply because the arrogant pashtun ethnosupremacists thought they were better than us and could simply demand our territory.

Let me know when your amnesia is cured.

 

[Musings]

@Pakistanithinktank

Id appreciate it if you stick to the topic.

 

[r3alist]

Is this real

 

[K2RULEZ]

‘I want to cry’: Afghan medical students in Pakistan face expulsion fear​

A court has temporarily suspended a directive to expel the students, but the threat of eviction lingers amid broader Pakistan-Afghanistan tensions.
Share ‘I want to cry’: Afghan medical students in Pakistan face expulsion fear on social media
An external view of the Khyber Girls Medical College in Peshawar, Pakistan [Courtesy Batool]
Hussain
Published On 11 Sep 202611 Sep 2026
|
Updated: 21 hours agoUpdated: 21 hours ago
Islamabad, Pakistan – Alishba*, a medical student, was on a maternity ward night shift in Lahore when her phone began filling with messages on September 8.
“Someone said, ‘We’ve received a notification that almost 20 students are being expelled,’” she told Al Jazeera. “My first reaction was, this is nonsense. How could a government expel students from universities without any reason?”
end of lisBy morning, it was not nonsense. She was one of nearly two dozen Afghan nationals named on her college’s expulsion list, circulating on Facebook within hours, all given less than three days to prepare to leave the only country where, as a woman, she has been able to study medicine at all.
On September 1, the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC), the country’s medical regulator, ordered universities and colleges to send enrolled Afghan students home. They were also barred from any new admissions, transfers or migrations of Afghan nationals for the current academic year.
In all, more than 200 Afghan students are currently enrolled in Pakistani medical or dental colleges, according to the PMDC, and most of them have been hit.
On September 11, they got temporary reprieve: Lahore High Court on Friday suspended the implementation of the PMDC directives, hearing petitions from Afghan students. The petitioners, represented by advocate Asad Jamal, argued PMDC had exceeded its jurisdiction under its own governing act and that students had been “condemned unheard”, their rights to education, life and dignity violated without any opportunity to respond.
The court noted some petitioners had studied in Pakistan for four years before now being told to leave. “Until yesterday, these were favoured children,” Justice Khalid Ishaq remarked. “Today, the policy has changed.”
The case returns to court on September 18, by which point PMDC, the Ministry of National Health Services, and the vice chancellors of affected institutions are required to file their responses. Until then, the students have respite from any punitive measure, Jamal, their lawyer, said.
“The judge very clearly stated in the courtroom that the students will be allowed to sit their exams, join classes, resume studies, and go back to their hostels, and no coercive measures can be taken against them,” he told Al Jazeera.
But the threat of expulsion lingers – a fear students must now live with, alongside their studies, while the case proceeds in court.
“I want to cry every minute,” Alishba said. “We are not dolls for them to play with. This is our life.”

A directive without a warning​

In a statement issued to justify its directive, the PMDC had argued that all foreign students enrolled in Pakistani medical or dental institutions needed to be registered with the regulator.
It said “only 22 are presently registered” with the PMDC – including 14 who have graduated, and eight who are about to graduate.
But many of the other students came through the Allama Iqbal Scholarship, a programme run by Pakistan’s Higher Education Commission (HEC) with the Pakistani embassy in Kabul for top-scoring Afghan students.
And the students say neither any Pakistani government agency nor their colleges told them at the time that they also needed to register with the PMDC, a body that – per its official mandate – both oversees medical practitioners and is supposed to register medical and dental students.
“I came to Pakistan in 2021,” Alishba said. “They [Pakistan] provided us the scholarship, processed entirely through HEC and the embassy.”
Nevertheless, within days of the PMDC directive, institutions across different parts of the country began issuing eviction notices, in some cases giving students as little as 24 hours to clear their hostel rooms.
The order comes amid a broader, years-long expulsion drive that has coincided with a dramatic plunge in relations between Islamabad and the Taliban government in Kabul, marked by a rise in cross-border attacks and clashes along the two countries’ shared border.
Pakistan launched what it called the Illegal Foreigners’ Repatriation Plan in late 2023, initially targeting undocumented migrants, after authorities said Afghan nationals had carried out 14 of 24 suicide bombings recorded in the country that year.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said in June this year that more than 2.4 million Afghan nationals had returned since the drive began, describing it, in a message marking World Refugee Day, as a “phased, orderly and dignified repatriation process”.
But to the medical and dental students now being forced to leave their studies midway, there’s nothing orderly or dignified about the way they are being treated.
Afghan students gathered outside the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council office in Lahore to enquire about their status, following the expulsion notification from the organisation [Courtesy Alishba]

Left off the register​

For Zainab*, a final-year student at another Lahore medical college, the order is the second time a change of government has closed a medical school door to her.
She had completed one semester at Kabul University of Medical Sciences when the Taliban seized power in August 2021, ending her studies there, as part of the group’s broader ban on women in higher education.
She later won her place in Pakistan through the HEC scholarship.
In her second year in Lahore, Zainab said, she walked into her college’s student affairs office and asked a simple question: Was she registered with PMDC?
She was told not to worry about it, that registration would come later, after graduation. Three years on, that unanswered question has become the official justification for sending her home mid-degree.
“If PMDC registration was genuinely the issue here, why wasn’t that stated anywhere?” she asked. “Why weren’t we told we weren’t registered? Why wasn’t it raised on the very first day we arrived, if it mattered this much?”
She initially held out hope the notice would not apply to her.
“But then our own university issued the same notice, and our vice chancellor called us in and told us clearly: This is a PMDC order, there is nothing we can do, come and collect your NOCs,” she said, referring to the no-objection certificates required to leave.
She has not formally been handed one. But she has been barred from lectures and hospital shifts since the notice arrived, which she says amounts to expulsion in practice, if not yet on paper.
Students interviewed by Al Jazeera describe a registration process they say was never in their own hands.
Rizwan*, a final-year medical student in Rawalpindi, said universities, not students, submit registration data to PMDC, typically once a student reaches second or third year.
“We are registered with the university, UHS and HEC,” he said, referring to the University of Health Sciences Lahore, which oversees several affected colleges. “But we are not registered with PMDC. Our registration is pending due to PMDC not approving it.”
Rizwan said the gap traces back to a regulatory upheaval that predates the current dispute.
Pakistan’s medical regulator was dissolved in 2019 under a presidential ordinance and replaced by a newly created body called the Pakistan Medical Commission (PMC).
In 2022, the Islamabad High Court restored the PMDC and declared the PMC’s formation illegal, a reversal that left a backlog of students and graduates from that period without a clear registration status. PMDC has since worked through the backlog in phases for various categories of students.
Afghan students admitted during the transition, Rizwan said, were among those still waitingThe PMDC’s directive bars institutions from facilitating any transfer or migration for Afghan students, a clause he says would strip him of even the option of continuing el“What if we want to continue somewhere else?” Rizwan, who is five months from finishing his degree, asked.

‘We are not immigrants’​

Afghan medical students, like the ones in this photo, faced a devastating setback when the Taliban imposed a ban on female medical education in 2024, leading to their dismissal from private schools and hospitals where they were practising as residents to gain practical experience [File: Samillah Popal/EPA]
Students interviewed by Al Jazeera were emphatic that they had never intended to remain in Pakistan beyond their studies, and had no legal path to do so regardless.

“After graduation we are not given a visa, because our visa is extended on our student status,” Rizwan said. “When that status ends, we always go back. We can’t stay here without a visa.”
Zainab made a similar point more pointedly, rejecting any comparison with the undocumented migrants targeted by Pakistan’s wider repatriation drive.
“We are not immigrants,” she said. “We were legally invited here, legally granted a scholarship by this country, legally issued a visa every single year. This should not be happening to us.”
The picture is not uniform across the country.
Batool*, a final-year medical student in Peshawar, said her college had not issued an eviction notice so far. She said her Pakistani classmates had been unfailingly supportive.
“The culture, the language, even the food, feels remarkably close to home,” she said. “I’ve never experienced or heard anything negative from people here, not now, and not before any of this.”
Afghanistan’s Taliban government has called the decision “inhumane”. Chief spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the country’s Ministry of Higher Education stood ready to help returning students continue their studies.
Rights group Human Rights Watch (HRW), too, condemned the government’s decision.
“The Pakistan government’s order is shockingly short-sighted and cruel, and seems yet again aimed only at punishing Afghans because of Pakistan’s conflict with the Taliban,” Patricia Gossman, HRW’s senior associate Asia director, told Al Jazeera.
“The end result of this incredibly callous approach is to deprive Afghans of trained doctors and other medical professionals, especially women, just as the country is in the throes of a humanitarian crisis,” she added.
Two former Pakistani ambassadors to Afghanistan have also questioned the decision, urging the government to reverse it.
Mansoor Ahmad Khan urged PMDC to “reconsider its decision on Afghan students in medical colleges and universities on humanitarian grounds”, proposing students be allowed to finish their degrees before any return is arranged.
Asif Durrani, a former special representative for Afghanistan, called the expulsion “shocking”.
“Expelling these students, particularly young women who have fought against extraordinary odds simply to study, is not just an administrative matter,” Durrani wrote on X. “It is a question of humanity, compassion and Pakistan’s own moral responsibility. Let them study. Let them become doctors. Let them serve their people. Reverse the decision. Give these students a future.”
Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Sajjad Haider Khan told Al Jazeera that students holding a valid visa and registered in a degree programme “are supposed to stay in the country” and finish their studies. But he did not explain the gap between that assurance and what students describe happening on campuses
Khan also outlined this position in response to a question from a reporter at a weekly briefing on Thursday.
HEC did not respond to questions from Al Jazeera. PMDC also did not address questions, referring Al Jazeera instead to its public statement.
Siddiq Shariati, president of the Afghan Student Union at the International Islamic University Islamabad, said the policy risked damage beyond the students immediately affected, and that he feared for his own position too, despite studying international relations rather than medicine.
“Given that PMDC has already issued a notice for all medical students, it’s entirely possible HEC could issue a similar notification next, one that applies to all Afghan students across all disciplines,” he told Al Jazeera. “If that happens, we would be forced to leave as well.”
In all, about 7,000 Afghan students are studying in Pakistani colleges, with more than 4,500 of them on Pakistan government-sponsored scholarships.

A view of the auditorium of the Khyber Girls Medical College in Peshawar, Pakistan [Courtesy Batool]

‘This is our life’​

Batool, the student in Peshawar, said the consequences of any expulsion would not fall equally on male and female students.
Male students, she said, could still be admitted to universities inside Afghanistan.
“Female students are in a genuinely devastating position, because no one is going to open universities just to accommodate 200 or 300 girls trying to finish a degree,” she said. “And if they did make that exception, they’d be forced to open education more broadly to everyone, not just us, not just medicine, because the double standard would draw immediate criticism, both from inside and outside Afghanistan.”
At Alishba’s college in Lahore, the vice chancellor gave students 24 hours to vacate the hostel, warning that anyone who stayed would be reported to the authorities.
She has not yet been forced out, but has not been allowed back into class either.
“The administration has said no Afghan student is permitted in class, and our attendance won’t be counted since we’re considered expelled,” she said.
She has packed an “emergency” bag, just documents and a change of clothes, in case she is made to leave without warning.
“My mother always dreamed of seeing me in scrubs, serving female patients who have no doctors in Afghanistan,” she said. “She has already made my graduation dress. Now, all of that has faded. There is no graduation. There is no degree.
“I feel like a doll being played with between the political issues of two countries,” Alishba added. “I’ve done nothing wrong. If you brought us here and gave us seats, let us finish our degrees.

They can cry in India.

 

[ThunderCat]

Therefore - all Afghans who spout anti Pakistan propaganda are actually innocent because one truth automatically makes the other false.

It is impossible that there is a rotten system in Pakistan supported by elite establishment and also Afghan leaders, thinkers and most of their intelligentsia that influence their refugee masses in Pakistan from the start of pre-partition history and overall by culture hold hatred for the people who are actually born and from Pakistani lands - those two simply cannot be true together because its?? Quran, Sunnah, Physics, Mathematics, Kalam e Khan??? Just curious?

Agreed with all except the "partition" part which is a fabrication of Bharati pseuodo-history, considering no such country as "India" or Bharat existed prior to 1947 and was in fact created a day AFTER Pakistan.

 

[Oscar]

Agreed with all except the "partition" part which is a fabrication of Bharati pseuodo-history, considering no such country as "India" or Bharat existed prior to 1947 and was in fact created a day AFTER Pakistan.

The term partition is used across borders - in this case it is partitioning of British controlled territory between two movements.

There is plenty of those who also decry the partition of Punjab(which is rather true from a ethnic/territorial perspective) but equate the entire creation of Pakistan as partition which is not true. Sindh was always to be separated from Bombay and Kashmir split due to conflict - not an arbitrated division by Radcliff.

Regardless of that - the simple fact is the Afghan "hatred" against what they view as loss of territory in KP was focused on Pakistan post the British of which prior to 47 their ire for muslims in the subcontinent was encompassed as a whole.