By IANS
Islamabad : The success of the military-led offensive at Lal Masjid to flush out Islamist radicals appears to have prompted the government to rename it "Operation Sunrise" instead of "Operation Silence".
The earlier name, the government now says, was coined by the media.
"Yes, it is official now. The armed forces of Pakistan never carried out Operation Silence at the Lal Masjid-Jamia Hafsa compound," the Dawn newspaper said Thursday.
About 100 people were killed and many were injured as the army's Special Services Group (SSG), paramilitary troopers and police evicted Lal Masjid clerics, a large number of students, both men and women, and armed militants.
Just when every Pakistani with access to any form of the news media was getting ready to hear that Operation Silence at the capital's Lal Masjid-Jamia Hafsa was about to end, it transpired that the military action was officially codenamed Operation Sunrise.
Asked if Operation Silence was the official name of the offensive, the response of Major-General Waheed Arshad, the director-general of Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR), was: "No, that has been coined by the media."
When quizzed about the official codename of the operation, the military spokesman paused and then told this correspondent that he would have to check about it.
"Perhaps after getting the clearance he called back 90 minutes later and disclosed that it was codenamed 'Operation Sunrise'," the paper reported.
He said there was no particular reason for the choice of the name.
The newspaper said: "It is on the ninth day of the Lal Masjid-Jamia Hafsa episode that the actual name of the operation has surfaced. Curiously enough, the military kept mum as the media continued to refer to it as 'Operation Silence'."
It is customary for any armed force to name a major operation. The Pakistan army is known never to give a pessimistic codename to any of its operations.