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Suicide attack as Lal Masjid reopens

ISLAMABAD: A suicide bomber killed at least 11 persons and left more than 40 injured metres from the capital’s Lal Masjid on Friday after an afternoon of violent clashes around the mosque as militant students reoccupied the renovated structure demanding that its arrested head cleric be reinstated, and police struggled to regain control.

Seven policemen were among those killed in the bombing, giving the impression that the suicide bomber carried out a targeted attack.

The policemen, part of the deployment round Lal Masjid during the afternoon clashes, were standing in a group next to a busy restaurant in the Aabpara market, a few hundred metres from the mosque.

Earlier, clashes erupted between the police and hundreds of madrassa students who gathered at the mosque, demanding that the Government reinstate Maulana Abdul Aziz.

The hardline Islamist head cleric was arrested trying to escape a security forces siege on the mosque earlier this month disguised in a burqa. He has been charged for terrorism and murder among a host of other charges.

The violence erupted as the Government reopened the mosque to worshippers on Friday for the first time after the siege that killed 102 persons including 11 security forces personnel.

The capital’s administration had repaired parts of the mosque damaged in fierce gun battles as security forces battled militants for control of the mosque during the siege and a commando operation inside.

The Government also appointed a new cleric, Maulana Ashfaque, to lead prayers at the mosque. But in a sign that it anticipated trouble, 1500 policemen, many of them in plainclothes, were deployed in and around the mosque, and metal detectors checked worshippers.

The unrest began a little before 1 pm as the worshippers rejected the new cleric, soon escalating into full-fledged clashes with police personnel. The students threw stones and the police retaliated with tear gas and lathicharge. Police estimated that at one point, they were facing a mob of nearly 3,000.

A senior police officer said the mob leaders were former students of the Lal Masjid, its affiliated madrassa Jamia Fareedia, and relatives of the women students of the madrassa Jamia Hafsa.

The police officer said many in the mob were those who had surrendered from the Lal Masjid during the first few days of the siege, were arrested and later released.

The students reoccupied the mosque for a few hours and even started repainting it red to protest against the administration’s renovation of the building in off-white.

It was only after the suicide blast that the capital administration managed to evict all the students inside and take back control of the mosque with the help of some local residents and senior worshippers who persuaded the students to leave. Police said they arrested some 50 students.

The suicide attack around 5.45 pm, at a time when the situation in the mosque was still fluid. The two-storeyed restaurant was crowded with customers and people watching the developments in and around the Lal Masjid.

Chaos reigned for several minutes as students from the mosque rushed to the bomb site, setting off fears of more attacks. Police made several announcements asking deployed personnel to keep clear of crowds to avoid being targeted.

“I was going towards Lal Masjid for the evening prayers, when I heard a loud blast. In that split second I turned around, and I could see bodies flying in the air,” said Mohammed Hyat Khan, an elderly man whose clothes were blood-stained from helping carrying out the dead and injued.

“I don’t know how many people died. I was transporting bits and pieces of bodies,” he said, his words coming out in a daze.

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