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Tense standoff in Islamabad

Nirupama Subramanian

Leave mosque or face crackdown, students told

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s capital was on edge with security forces and militant students inside the Lal Masjid-Jamia Hafsa complex locked in a tense standoff on Wednesday while throughout the day the Government urged those inside the mosque to leave or face the consequences of a final crackdown.

The paramilitary forces and police commandos threw a tight cordon of men, barbed wire and armoured vehicles around the complex early in the morning in preparation for a possible storming of the mosque, but through the day, the Government kept extending its deadline of safe passage and amnesty plus Rs. 5,000 to those inside who wanted to surrender.

The Government’s moves came after a day of bloody clashes between the students in the mosque complex and paramilitaries on Tuesday left at least 16 persons dead and more than 100 injured, and President Pervez Musharraf announced that no one would be allowed to challenge the Government’s writ.

Nearly 700 students trickled out in small groups after the Government made its offer. Among them were some 500 boys and men who were bussed off to jails. Information Minister Muhammed Ali Durrani said at a press conference they would be let off after questioning.

Some 190 girls, clad in their trademark black niqab, came out and went home with their parents and other relatives who were allowed to go to the madrassa to fetch them, and after officials registered their names. Officials said those girls who wanted to come out but whose relatives were not present would be provided safe shelter.

Many of the girls who came out were defiant. “We left the Hafsa because our parents were beseeching us to come out, but we left reluctantly. Our place is inside the Hafsa with our sisters and teachers. We should be there to protect our school, we are ready to lay down our lives for it,” said one girl, who gave her name as Hamna.

She said she would never accept the money that the Government had offered to those who left the complex. “All I want is for Allah to restore our Hafsa to us,” she said. But there were also angry parents who said the mosque authorities were preventing many of the students from leaving. “They are preventing them at pistol-point, that’s what we heard. They are out to use the students, to exploit them for their ulterior motives. The clerics are now afraid of what will happen to them once this over, people are so angry with them for doing this, for causing so much bloodshed. If I have my way, I will smash them,” said Khan Badshah, who said he was able to rescue his niece only after six hours of repeatedly sending chits inside the Hafsa.

Those coming out said as many as 2,000 girls continued to remain inside and were determined to stay on. It was not clear how the security forces would deal with them, but Mr. Durrani said the idea of getting as many people to surrender was to ensure “minimum loss of life”.

The Government’s decision to close in on the mosque came after Gen. Musharraf gave the go-ahead for an operation at a late night meeting on Tuesday. The administration clamped a curfew in the neighbourhood of the mosque in the early hours of Wednesday.

The curfew remained in place into the night. There was firing from the mosque as dusk fell and the security forces shot tear gas shells into the complex in retaliation.

Brigadier Javed Iqbal Cheema, head of the Interior Ministry’s crisis management cell, said the Government was exercising “maximum restraint” and continuing to extend its amnesty offer as it was getting “mixed signals” from mosque administrator Abdul Rashid Ghazi.

The Government also wanted to provide “a window of opportunity” to those who still wanted to come out, he said.

Though there were reports that Maulana Fazlur Rehman, leader of the Opposition and of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal religious coalition, was in contact with Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz to facilitate a resolution to the stand-off, Brig. Cheema said there was “no dialogue” with Mr. Ghazi, and that the hardline cleric continued to remain defiant. The cleric maintained throughout that there was no question of surrender until the Government withdrew its forces.

“He has no option but to surrender,” Brig. Cheema said.

The Government has registered cases of murder, arson, terrorism and for attacking security forces against Mr. Ghazi and his brother Abdul Aziz who are jointly running the mosque-madrassa complex.

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