From a gated community for her Zoroastrian faith in Pakistan's megacity Karachi, 22-year-old Elisha Amra has waved goodbye to many friends migrating abroad as the ancient Parsi community dwindles.

Soon the film student hopes to join them -- becoming one more loss to Pakistan's ageing Zoroastrian Parsi people, a community who trace their roots back to Persian refugees from today's Iran more than a millennium ago.

"My plan is to go abroad," Amra said, saying she wants to study for a master's degree in a country without the restrictions of a conservative Muslim-majority society.

"I want to be able to freely express myself", she added.

Zoroastrianism, founded by the prophet Zarathustra, was the predominant religion of the ancient Persian empire, until the rise of Islam with the Arab conquests of the seventh century.

Once the Parsi community in Pakistan had as many as 15,000-20,000 people, said Dinshaw Behram Avari, the head of one of the most prominent Parsi families.

Today, numbers hover around 900 people in Karachi and a few dozen more elsewhere in Pakistan,........

© International Business Times