PAKISTAN: ROGUE MOSQUE FOLLOWERS SNATCH AND THEN FREE POLICE AS STANDOFF CONTINUES

AKI ^ | 5/22/07

[Valin]

Islamabad, 22 May (AKI/DAWN) - Students of a seminary linked to Islamabad's radical Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) kidnapped another three policemen on Monday, but freed them after police deployed in force, officials and eyewitnesses said. They said the incident took place in the upmarket E-7 neighbourhood during the evening rush hour when students of the Jamia Fareedia madrassa pulled four policemen out of a car and dragged them into their madrassa. One of the men, however, escaped and rushed to seek help.

Senior police officers reached the madrassa to negotiate the release of their colleagues, but the students refused to free them saying they had acted to avenge the harassment they had suffered at the hands of police.

Islamabad’s Deputy Commissioner Chaudhry Mohammad Ali also tried to negotiate a deal with Lal Masjid deputy head Maulana Abdul Rasheed Ghazi on telephone.

Later police assembled a big force of local, Punjab and Elite police, backed by heavily-armed Rangers and three armoured personnel carriers. The show of force did the trick and the students released the policemen, according to a senior police officer.

Maulana Ghazi, however, rejected the police claim and told Dawn that he had agreed to their release “as a goodwill gesture and not out of fear”.

To prove that Lal Masjid could not be intimidated into submission, he declared that two of the four policemen kidnapped last Friday and still being held, would be released only when the government honoured its part of the bargain and freed three seminary students arrested last month for disturbing public order.

But the local administration extended their detention for another month on Monday, blocking their release on bail granted by a district court following a deal struck by the two sides on Saturday.

Meanwhile, local authorities have registered cases against the 41 Lal Masjid militants detained until Sunday and plan to do the same with over 50 more men picked up from various parts of the city on Monday.

Despite the Lal Masjid brigade’s open show of force and defiance of law since January 21, the interior ministry has been reluctant to act on the grounds that it would put at risk female students of Jamia Hafsa seminary, located inside the Masjid complex.

Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao’s warning to the Lal Masjid leadership on Sunday night “to be ready to endure the fallout of such crimes” apparently fell on deaf ears as the Jamia Fareedia students seized three more policemen on Monday.

Police sources said that the show of force was meant to secure the release of policemen because they had strict orders from the interior ministry not to go on the offensive.