Madrasa standoff: Two cops still held hostage

Radical students of the Lal Masjid seminaries abducted three policemen today, holding a total of five policemen hostage, demanding the release of...

Radical students of the Lal Masjid seminaries abducted three policemen today, holding a total of five policemen hostage, demanding the release of nine students detained by the government. Two of the policemen were abducted on Friday.

However, late this evening, the students released three policemen after police threatended they would storm into their madrasa.

Police, for their part, detained dozens of students and authorities deployed 10,000 security personnel in the area.

Earlier in the day, the defiant chief cleric of Lal Masjid, Maulana Abdul Aziz, warned of launching jihad against

the government if the mosque was raided.

Abdul Rashid Ghazi, a cleric at the mosque, had said on Sunday that the officers would only be released in return for the freedom of nine school students who are in the government8217;s custody.

Aziz used the mosque loudspeakers, typically used to amplify calls for prayers, to say, 8220;We will not retreat. We will sacrifice our lives,8221; as his supporters chanted 8220;God is great8221; and 8220;Holy war8221;.

Ghazi had said over the weekend that the students

abducted the officers because they were standing outside

the seminary despite an agreement with authorities that

police would not be deployed there.

Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao said the government has observed restrain for over three months despite provocation just to avoid bloodshed but the clerics of Lal Masjid have pushed law-enforcement agencies to be ready for an operation.

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8220;Now, the law-enforcement agencies are free to make a strategy to maintain the writ of the government,8221; he told the media here last night.8220;The administration is trying its best to secure the release of its kidnapped police officials.8221;

Hundreds of male and female students from the mosque8217;s seminary have recently carried out anti-vice campaigns in the relatively liberal capital, warning music shops and brothels to close. Musharraf, who has been promoting a moderate Islam, on Friday acknowledged in a TV interview that militancy in Pakistan was increasing.