KARACHI: The Sindh High Court on Tuesday restrained the federal government from deporting Turkish teachers working for the Pak-Turk International Schools.

A two-judge SHC bench headed by Justice Munib Akhtar issued an interim restraining order on a petition filed by some formeremployees of the Pak-Turk Educational Foundation last week apprehending their likely deportation after their colleague reportedly went missing along with his family in Lahore.

The bench also issued notices to the federal authorities concerned to file their comments by Oct 10.

The petitioners submitted that Islamabad was trying to deport staffers of the Pak-Turk International Schools at the behest of Ankara.

They added that the court had previously restrained the federal authorities from deporting the Turkish nationals who were performing teaching duties at the schools run by the foundation ofUS-based Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen.

However, the petitioners alleged that the authorities were still deporting Turkish nationals and their families in violation of the court order.

They informed the court that a former principal of a Pak-Turl( School, Mesut Kacmez, and his family members were taken away by men in plainclothes from their residence in Lahore on Sept 27.

Mr Kacmez along with his wife and two daughters was reportedly taken to an undisclosed location, they submitted while quoting media reports.

The petitioners further submitted that an attempt was alsorecently made to kidnap the family of another Turkish employee in Khairpur.

They pleaded for restraining the federal and provincial authorities from deporting them to Turkey.

They also sought a direction for the interior ministry to put the names of all the employees of the Pak-Turk schools on the Exit Control List to stop their deportation.

In December last the deportation issue was taken up by the court afteragroup ofparents,students and teachers of the Pak-Turk schools approached it against the deportation of the Turkish teaching staff following a request made by the Turkish government.Ankara had requested Islamabad to close down the Pak-Turk schools run by Gulen, who had been accused of instigating a coup attempt last year in Turkey.

The interior ministry had in November last year ordered the Turkish staff of the educational network to leave Pakistan, rejecting their applications for extension in visas.

The students and their teachers in their earlier petition had argued that the Pak-Turk Foundation was a non-profit, non-governmental organisation which had nothing to do with the politics of Pakistan or Turkey and the deportation order would hurt the interests of 11,000 students studying in the schools.