The Pakistani mission in New Delhi has written to the government of West Bengal, ruled by communists for nearly three decades, seeking to study the state's success at reforming its Islamic schools.

Madrasas in the state teach religious tolerance and include Christian and Hindu students in the classrooms as well as teaching subjects such as science and information technology.

"We have read about the madrasas of West Bengal and hopefully we can replicate them in our reforms programme," Mohammed Khalid Jamali, a first secretary at the Pakistani High Commission in New Delhi, told Reuters on Thursday.

"We have written to the West Bengal government to gather knowledge about religious tolerance practised in the madrasas, the curriculum and the successful reforms programme," he said.

Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has vowed to clean up the religious schools.

After the July 7, 2005, suicide bombings of London's Underground trains, he ordered all foreigners be expelled from madrasas in Pakistan because their presence was giving the country a reputation as a breeding ground for militancy.

At least one of the four suicide bombers was believed to have spent time at a madrasa.

Nearly a quarter of West Bengal's 80 million people are Muslims, but the state has seen very little religious violence compared to other parts of India.

Many put this down at least in part to reforming the madrasas.

Half of the state's 1,000 madrasas -- attended by about 400,000 students -- are now government-run and officials plan to take control of the rest in coming years.

West Bengal's madrasas teach Islam and Sufi literature as well as science, and also plan to introduce foreign languages such as French, in addition to the Arabic, Urdu, Hindi and English already taught.

There are 12,000 madrasas in Pakistan, mostly providing rudimentary schooling, free religious education, shelter and food to about one million boys from poor families.

West Bengal's government said it was eager to help Pakistan.

"I got the letter two days ago and we are happy to know that Pakistan is keen to learn about our system of education in madrasas. We will try and help them out," Abdus Sattar, West Bengal's education minister, told Reuters.