By DPA
Islamabad : Thousands across Pakistan Friday protested against the siege and storming of Lal Masjid here by troops that resulted in at least 108 deaths.
Demonstrators in Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar and other major cities condemned the “brutal action” at the mosque and adjoining seminary and waived placards bearing slogans against President Pervez Musharraf.
“Musharraf has shed the blood of hundreds of innocents only to please his Western masters,” local cleric Maulana Rehmatullah told the protesters.
“The government cannot suppress our demands for enforcement of Islamic Sharia law in the country with atrocities like those at the Red Mosque … Islam will soon rule the country,” he said.
The call for countrywide protests came from Wafaq-ul-Madaris, a powerful body of religious scholars that represents more than 10,000 madrassas, and the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) alliance of religious political parties.
Hundreds more protesters blocked a central avenue in Islamabad, about two kilometres from the devastated mosque complex, amid loud display of mourning for students who died after commandos stormed into the buildings early Tuesday.
“The issue could have been resolved through dialogue but the government deliberately caused the failure of last-minute efforts toward a negotiated solution,” MMA parliamentarian Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haidry told the gathering.
Hundreds of people also offered prayers at the grave of Abdul Rashid Ghazi, the deputy chief cleric of the complex who died in the fighting and was buried in his home village in southern Punjab on Thursday.
Similar rallies were held across Pakistan after clerics incited worshippers in Friday sermons and attacked the government for the bloodshed.
Meanwhile, authorities hightened security in anticipation of further retaliatory attacks by Red Mosque sympathizers.
Troops were deployed in several districts of the restive North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) where more than two dozen people died in bombings since the mosque siege began on July 3. Army units sealed off approaches to the NWFP town of Hangu where several members of the security forces were killed and injured insuicide bombings on Thursday, the Dawn news channel reported.
The military activity around Hangu was also thought to be linked with local radio broadcasts by an Islamic cleric who called upon people to retaliate for the events in the capital.
Some 10,000 paramilitary troops were also deployed in Karachi around the southern port city’s official buildings and 12 of the largest madrassas.