By IANS
Islamabad : Dozens of bodies of alleged militants killed in the storming of the Lal Masjid were buried here Thursday as Al Qaeda urged Pakistani people to overthrow President Pervez Musharraf for ordering the army assault.
As televisions beamed pictures of a vast stockpile of arms and weapons seized from the sprawling mosque complex, where fierce fighting over the past two days left at least 73 people dead, the mass burials took place at a cemetery at the edge of Islamabad.
No relatives were present at the burials. Witnesses said that many of the bodies were decomposing and scarred beyond recognition.
The body of Abdul Rashid Ghazi, deputy chief cleric of the complex, was transported to his home village Rojhan Mazari in Punjab province where hundreds attended his funeral.
His brother, chief cleric Maulana Abdul Aziz, had been arrested earlier trying to escape from the complex dressed like a woman. Aziz was released on parole to attend Ghazi’s funeral.
Most of Pakistan was calm Thursday despite fears of terror backlash in the wake of the Tuesday attack on the controversial Lal Masjid after the militant clerics and his followers holed up inside refused to surrender.
There was also intense speculation about the death toll in the 36 hours of fighting, with rumours that hundreds had been killed. But officials put it at 73 including 10 Pakistani commandos who bore the brunt of militant fire.
Many people complained they were unable to locate their missing relatives who were inside the mosque, located in the heart of Islamabad and close to the headquarters of Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI).
Even as US President George W. Bush hailed Musharraf for attacking the Lal Masjid, Osama bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, called the mosque storming a “despicable crime” and urged Pakistanis to rise up against the president.
Al-Zawahiri, an Egyptian, accused Musharraf of working on behalf of the “crusaders” – a reference to the West.
His chilling message said: “This is a message of blinding clarity to the Muslims in Pakistan. This crime can only be washed away by repentance or blood.”
The state-run Pakistan television showed scenes Thursday of the damaged Lal Masjid from the inside where Pakistani military fought hard to seize room after room from the well-armed pro-Taliban militants who had been bent upon imposing an Islamic way of life in the Pakistani capital.
An eyewitness who visited the complex Wednesday told Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper that the site was littered with bodies wrapped in white shrouds.
“I could not count them but they must have been in the hundreds,” he was quoted as saying. The Jamia Hafsa seminary in the complex was badly damaged.
The military insisted after a search of the labyrinthine mosque complex that no women and children were among the victims.
Military spokesman Major General Waheed Arshad told reporters late Wednesday that 33 commandos were also injured in the operation. The troops took control of the mosque Wednesday afternoon, ending a week-long standoff.
The Dawn also reported that the military-led offensive at Lal Masjid to flush out Islamist radicals was codenamed “Operation Sunrise” and not “Operation Silence” as reported earlier. Officials said the media had coined the earlier name.
The attack on Lal Masjid has already split the opposition ranks, with the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto supporting the government.
The Lal Masjid standoff began in January when hundreds of stick-wielding female students of the seminary occupied a children’s library in Islamabad to protest the demolition of mosques in the capital.
Emboldened by the inaction of authorities, more students demanding the enforcement of Sharia law in Pakistan began an anti-vice drive in the capital, detaining alleged prostitutes, harassing storeowners and even kidnapping policemen.