Dozens of Afghan medical students in Pakistan are contesting a Pakistan Medical and Dental Council order that would expel them and require their return to Afghanistan. The PMDC said no facilitation of Afghan nationals is permitted for the current academic session and framed the move as a national policy priority. Rights groups have condemned the directive and several court petitions are underway, including a Lahore hearing expected to decide the fate of dozens of students. Some students say records were removed or they received immediate deportation notices; lawyers say the order offered no opportunity to be heard.
Afghan Medical Students in Pakistan Seek Court Relief After PMDC Expulsion Order
An exterior view of Dow University of Health Sciences in Karachi. Dozens of Afghans studying to be doctors in Pakistan hope a court hearing will overturn an order by the country's medical board for them to be expelled from colleges and universities and sent home (Rizwan TABASSUM)
Dozens of Afghan students training to be doctors in Pakistan are asking the courts to block a Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) directive that would expel them from medical and dental colleges and require their return to Afghanistan.
PMDC Directive
Earlier this month the PMDC sent a letter to academic institutions stating that no "form of facilitation of Afghan nationals is permitted for the current academic session." The notice added:
"Afghans previously enrolled in medical or dental programs in Pakistan are required to return to Afghanistan."
Political and Humanitarian Context
Relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan have deteriorated since the Taliban returned to power in Kabul in 2021 and flared into weeks of cross-border fighting earlier this year. According to United Nations figures, more than 2.5 million Afghans — many of them long-term refugees — have left Pakistan over the past three years amid a drive by Islamabad to reduce the Afghan population in the country.
Legal Challenge
The PMDC announcement prompted multiple court petitions across provinces. A hearing in Lahore, Punjab, was set to determine the fate of several dozen students; a petition was rejected in Balochistan and another remains pending in Sindh. Rights groups have strongly criticised the order: Human Rights Watch urged the authorities to reverse it, highlighting the hardship for women who are banned from studying in Afghanistan, while Amnesty International called the move "discriminatory and arbitrary." Lawyers for the students say the PMDC provided no opportunity for affected students to be heard.
Human Impact
One petitioner in Lahore, a 23-year-old woman who was days away from completing her second year, said a judge suspended the provincial expulsion order on September 11 but that her academic records had already been removed from the university's online system. She had previously been forced to end studies in Afghanistan after Taliban authorities banned women from universities and was one of roughly 20 Afghan women awarded a scholarship from some 30,000 applicants. "I will never give up... I learned from this journey that sadness doesn't bring anything," she said by phone from Kabul.
Other students reported abrupt deportation notices. Mubin Ulfati, a 24-year-old final-year student in Lahore, said he was given 24 hours to leave shortly after returning from a hospital shift. Some trainees — including a fourth-year student specialising in ophthalmology — were reportedly pulled out of operating theatres and deported after failing to renew visas.
What Comes Next
The PMDC did not respond to requests for comment. Lawyers handling the Lahore petitions say that, if provincial courts do not rule in the students' favour, the cases could be taken to Pakistan's Federal Constitutional Court. For now, students, families and rights groups await judicial decisions that will determine whether those training to be doctors can complete their education in Pakistan.
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