By IANS
Islamabad : Security forces tightened their siege in an apparent endgame to the Lal Masjid standoff in the heart of the Pakistan capital Saturday as President Pervez Musharraf delivered an ultimatum to the radicals still holed up in the complex after five days.
Around 50 more students of the two madrassas – Jamia Fareedia for men and Jamia Hafsa for women – attached to the mosque were arrested Saturday, and the police moved into Jamia Fareedia, according to DPA.
Officials said 1,221 students, including 795 men and 426 women, have surrendered so far, Xinhua reported.
Musharraf ruled out any compromise with the militants still inside the mosque for the last five days and warned them "to surrender or face death".
Several news channels quoted Musharraf as saying: "The Lal Masjid administration has damaged the Muslims and Islam throughout the world." He added that the writ of the law would be ensured all over the country at all cost.
"Those inside the mosque should surrender, otherwise they will be killed," the president said. "The government is exercising maximum restraint to save the lives of innocents being held by militants at the mosque."
However, Lal Masjid deputy chief cleric Abdul Rashid Ghazi and his followers remained defiant.
"We can never turn ourselves in. We will accept martyrdom but will not surrender," Ghazi told Geo news channel after the government dismissed his offer to surrender in return for safe passage for his followers.
Around 450 students made their wills after offering Friday prayers, sources inside the mosque told the news channels.
Zafar Iqbal, senior police superintendent, told DPA: "Some 50 students of Jamia Fareedia have been taken into custody in an advanced movement. Jamia Fareedia is in our total control, and we did not face any resistance from the students."
Several blasts were heard around the complex early Saturday. Paramilitary forces fired several mortar shells into the madrassa, where strong resistance was being offered by around several hundred radicals, many believed to be trained by Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters.
"We have heard 11 back-to-back powerful blasts with one minute gap, followed by heavy firing," an eyewitness told DPA from the scene.
The blasts occurred as a five-member delegation of parliamentarians and leaders of religious political parties was inching towards the Lal Masjid for a meeting with Ghazi.
"We are going there with supplies of medicine and food and to persuade Ghazi to surrender unconditionally so that more bloodshed can be avoided," Syyed Bilal, a local leader of religious alliance Muttahida Majlis-e-Ammal (MMA), had told Aaj news channel earlier.
He said the delegation would also discuss security arrangements for moving the bodies and the injured to hospitals.
Mosque officials had refused to hand over the bodies to the ambulance service saying they would disappear or be buried in some mass grave, sources in the mosque told DPA.
Mosque officials claim there are more than 80 bodies inside the mosque. Speaking to Geo news channel over telephone Saturday, Ghazi alleged that security forces had killed 70 students in attacks on the mosque during the day.
After the blasts, the delegation, including two female MMA parliamentarians, left the area without meeting Ghazi.
Later Saturday, Pakistan's Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said the government wanted to resolve the Lal Masjid issue promptly and with minimum loss of life, state media reported.
"We want to protect the lives of women and children who have been made hostage by extremists in Jamia Hafsa and are very concerned about their plight and the plight of their parents who have come to collect their children," Aziz said while chairing a meeting here, the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan reported.
The prime minister said the government is concerned over reports that women and children have been forcibly detained and made hostage by the "extremists" inside the mosque and seminary complex.
"Their safety is the top priority of the government and we are pursuing a strategy to achieve our objectives without compromising on their safety," Aziz said.
Tension at the mosque began Tuesday when militant students attacked a police check post, prompting fierce gunbattles.
The students have been at loggerheads with the authorities for the past five months over their efforts to impose strict Islamic Sharia law by kidnapping several women for their alleged involvement in prostitution and warning music store owners to stop selling "un-Islamic" goods.
Meanwhile, the government was investigating the failed assassination attempt on the president Friday, when several anti-aircraft rounds missed his plane.
Immediately after the incident, some militants inside the mosque told Geo news channel that their supporters had carried out the attack, but the claim could not be verified.
Some sympathisers of the Lal Masjid hardliners continued their attacks on security forces in Swat district of North West Frontier Province.
An explosion targeted a military convoy near Chakdara in the district, killing four soldiers including two officers.
Four policemen were also injured in the same district when the militants ambushed their vehicle.
Security forces were deployed in the area after local cleric Fazalullah, of the banned extremist Islamic organisation Nifaz Shariat-I-Mohammed, had threatened to carry out attacks on Pakistani security forces if the siege of Lal Masjid was not ended.
The warning preceded three attacks on police officials in Swat district over the last three days, which have left six people, including two policemen, dead.