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No talks with clerics: Islamabad

Nirupama Subramanian

Security forces move closer to mosque-madrassa complex

— Photo: AFP

Smoked out: Soldiers escort blindfolded militants who were holed up in The Red Mosque in Islamabad on Thursday. The militants tried to escape from the besieged mosque during a heavy exchange of gunfire. Several blasts were heard and police fired tear gas during the most intense of a series of skirmishes since troops surrounded the complex a few days ago.

ISLAMABAD: On the third day of the showdown between the Lal Masjid and security forces, the sound of explosions and gunfire frequently shattered the silence of the curfew around the mosque-madrassa complex as the security forces, now including the army, moved closer to the compound and exchanged fire with the militants inside.

The mosque’s high-profile cleric, Maulana Abdul Rashid Ghazi, sent out signals he was willing to surrender if the Government could give him an assurance that he would not be tortured or killed. The Government said it would treat him according to the law.

Nearly 1,000 students, including 615 men and some 370 women have given themselves up since Wednesday when the security forces began closing in on the mosque. Mr. Ghazi’s brother Abdul Aziz, chief maulvi at Lal Masjid, was caught on Wednesday trying to escape in a burqa.

Troops also captured seven students who tried to escape from the mosque. They were marched hooded and hands tied behind their back to an interrogation centre outside the security cordon in full view of journalists. An official described them as “hardcore” militants, and they were later sent to jail after questioning.

It was not clear until late in the evening if the soldiers and paramilitaries would storm the buildings where an uncertain number of militant students are still holed up. Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao said among them were 50 “hardcore” militants. But estimates of the number of people vary from 150 to 2000. Government officials said most were being held inside against their will. It was also not clear if there were any casualties in the exchanges of fire that have taken place. An aerial view shown on local television showed smoke rising from the neighbourhood of the mosque.

President Pervez Musharraf reportedly told his officials that “not a drop of blood should be shed”, and security officials on the spot said their first option was still to exercise “maximum restraint” and wait for as many of those inside as possible to surrender.

The massive display of strength by the security forces, including the deployment of large numbers of troops, Cobra helicopter gunships that flew over the mosque now and then, and the stationing of armoured personnel carriers in several places, seemed intended to build pressure on the students inside and make them surrender. It also seemed aimed at provoking the militants inside to use their firearms and exhaust their ammunition. An official of the elite Rangers paramilitary asserted the security forces did not fire a single offensive bullet, and had carried out only retaliatory firing, after “intense firing” from the compound.

As the exchange of fire grew intense, parents and relatives of the students still inside grew more and more anxious as they waited outside the security cordon along with hundreds of media personnel.

Several said they had spoken to their boys on mobile telephones but they did not want to come out for fear of being killed by the troops, but they also said that many of those who wanted to give themselves up were being held hostage by the “hardcore” elements.

“I spoke to my nephew, and I told him his maulvi has been caught dressed like a woman and that he should come out now. But he said if he did that, there was no telling if he would be hit by bullets from the front or the back,” said Zafar Iqbal, who had come from Abbotabad to collect his brother’s son Nazakat Ali.

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