There is a small population of Pakistanis in Kyrgyzstan, primarily students pursuing medical degrees. Most Pakistanis are based in the capital city of Bishkek. There are 200 Pakistani students in Kyrgyz State Medical Academy alone. They have complained to the media about the poor treatment they face at the hands of local militsiya. During the 2010 South Kyrgyzstan riots, fifteen Pakistani students were taken hostage by militants in Osh, among whom one, a final-year engineering student named Ali Raza was killed. Another 263 were evacuated from the city. Students in unaffected areas were not evacuated and remained in the country. Later that year, Pakistani businessman Zahid Jan of ZTK Co. announced plans to invest in Jalal-Abad with the construction of a juice factory there.
Total population estimates vary. Kyrgyzstan's census (which records ethnicity, rather than citizenship) gives a line item for "ethnic groups of India and Pakistan" (народы Индии и Пакистана). This has fluctuated significantly over the decades, with 10 in the 1989 Soviet Census, 506 in the 1999 Census, and 41 in the 2009 Census. Kyrgyzstan's ambassador to Pakistan was quoted in a Pakistan Observer interview as stating that 2,000 Pakistanis studied in Kyrgyzstan at the time.