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| July 07, 2007 | Saturday | Jamadi-us-Sani 21, 1428 |
Ghazi, militants vow to fight till bitter end
ISLAMABAD, July 6: Security forces persisted in their plan of softening their target in Lal Masjid on the fourth day on Friday with heavy firing and tear-gas shelling amid indications that the besieged cleric, Maulana Abdul Rashid Ghazi, and his hardcore lieutenants had decided to fight till the end, and not to surrender.
Sounds of explosions and firing were heard throughout the day in the Sector G-6 curfew zone and nearby areas with heavy exchanges of firing between the security forces and Lal Masjid militants. Movement of armoured personnel carriers continued in the areas around the mosque.
The misery of the residents who have been stranded in the curfew zone for four days was compounded on Friday when the authorities suspended gas supply to the area in order to further mount pressure on Lal Masjid.
The troops conducted the longest spell of firing and shelling on the mosque, lasting two hours from 10am to noon, and another attack was carried out at 6pm and two blasts were heard.
A pall of dust and debris blew in the air when the second blast took place. It was believed that the outer wall of the Lal Masjid complex was destroyed in the blast.
The curfew was relaxed for three hours -- from 12:30pm to 3:30pm -- for Friday prayers.
Despite tension and fears in the area, Friday prayer was offered in Lal Masjid, but this time it was led by Qari Inamullah and not by Maulana Abdul Aziz who has been custody. Maulana Ghazi gave Friday sermons which were attended only by people inside the mosque.
Meanwhile, Maulana Ghazi told a private TV channel that he and his companions were ready to die and would never surrender.
“We have decided that we may be martyred, but we will not surrender,” he said.
“We are sacrificing our lives for the supremacy of our religion and for the enforcement of Islamic laws. We have no regrets and we will embrace martyrdom,” he said.
He said: “We are writing our wills and we want to be buried in the mosque.”
Maulana Ghazi said four students had been killed when a mortar fired by the security forces hit a room in the mosque, with more casualties in a pre-dawn skirmish. However, it was not confirmed by officials.
The government has once again rejected a conditional surrender offer made by Maulana Ghazi.
Information Minister Mohammad Ali Durrani sad at a press conference he addressed along with Interior Secretary Syed Kamal Shah and ISPR Director-General Waheed Arshad that Maulana Ghazi would not be humiliated if he surrendered.
He urged political and religious leaders, intellectuals, NGOs and the general public to come forward and put pressure on the Lal Masjid-Jamia Hafsa administration to let innocent children and women students come out of the mosque.
“We have information about presence of children along with female and male students in the premises of Jamia Hafsa. This is the main issue the government is facing,” he said.
The minister said the government had information that the children and students were being prevented from leaving the premises.
“The Lal Masjid authorities are neither allowing the children and students to leave the premises nor are they allowing the parents of these children to enter the Lal Masjid premises,” he said.
He said the security forces had allowed some parents to enter Lal Masjid on Friday to try to secure release of their children, but the parents were fired at and one of them was injured and admitted to hospital.
Responding to a question, the minister rejected an assertion that the Lal Masjid operation had been launched to divert people’s attention from multi-party conference (MPC) called in London by former prime minister Nawaz Sharif to discuss political situation in the country.
Interior Secretary Kamal Shah said that so far 1,221 people, 795 men and 426 women, had surrendered and 19 had died.
He said Maulana Ghazi would no be embarrassed if he came out of the mosque. “He will not be asked to take his shirt off,” he said.
The ISPR director-general said that no helicopter ever targeted Lal Mosque or Jamia Hafsa, the choppers only undertook the job of reconnaissance and surveillance.
He also denied reports that mortars or shells had been fired at the mosque and the seminary. “No tank or artillery facility is employed in Islamabad so there is no question of firing any such weapon on Jamia Hafsa or the mosque,” he said.
Answering a question, he said there was no link between an attack on a vehicle of security personnel with a remote control device in the Chakdara area and the ongoing operation against the Lal Masjid brigade.
“Such incidents had been continuing off and on over the last some time, so I do not find any linkage of such incidents with the operation,” he said.
Earlier, some people living near Lal Mosque complained that tear-gas had entered some houses at a time when a helicopter was flying very low on the mosque. However, it could not be confirmed whether the gas was sprayed from the chopper or it was due to heavy shelling by ground forces deployed around the mosque. “White-coloured gas entered my house and caused breathing problems to the children,” said a resident.
Another man told Dawn that windowpanes of many houses were shattered by heavy explosions in the evening.
Only 13 people left the mosque and surrendered on Friday.
The authorities allowed parents of some children to proceed to Lal Masjid, but when they were near the mosque they were reportedly attacked by militants hiding in the mosque and two aged men suffered bullet injuries.
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