Pakistan is refusing to take back the ringleaders of the Rochdale child grooming scandal after they renounced their citizenship.

Ministers are engaged in high-level talks with the Pakistan government to persuade them to drop their block on the deportations of Qari Abdul Rauf and Adil Khan, two of Britain’s worst grooming offenders. Sources indicated that progress was being made.

The pair lost appeals against deportation in 2018 but remain in Britain.

Pakistan officials told The Telegraph it would be “extremely difficult” to take back such dangerous criminals and that there was “no basis to accept them” if they had renounced their citizenship.

But interior ministry sources suggested that if the UK engaged in negotiations, “progress could be made”.

Pakistan sources suggested restoring direct flights to the UK by its national airline PIA which have been suspended for safety reasons could help, but UK officials said this had not been raised in any talks.

It comes after the grooming scandal was thrust back into the spotlight this week with the publication of a damning audit by Baroness Casey, which found that police and council leaders had failed to investigate cases for fear of being labelled racist.

The Home Office has deported at least three other named Pakistani child sex groomers, including one from Rotherham, in the past nine months.

The Rochdale child rapists are the most high-profile who remain in the UK after exploiting the courts and citizenship rules to avoid deportation.

Rauf, a 55 year old father of five and Khan, 54, were jailed in 2012 as ringleaders of a nine-strong gang of Asian men who sexually assaulted 47 girls – some as young as 12 – after plying them with drink and drugs over two years in Rochdale.