பாகிஸ்தான் லால் மசூதியில் மீண்டும் கலவரம்: வெடிகுண்டில் பலர் பலி

லால் மசூதி மீண்டும் திறக்கப்பட்டதும், ஏராளமான முஸ்லீம் மாணவர்கள் அதனை ஆக்கிரமித்து மீண்டும் போலீஸை தாக்கினர். அவர்கள் வீசிய வெடிகுண்டு வெடித்து பலர் பலியானதாக செய்திகள் தெரிவிக்கின்றன

'Several die' in Red Mosque blast

The students chanted slogans against President Musharraf
An explosion has rocked Pakistan's Red Mosque after violent clashes between police and Islamist students, killing several people, officials say.
There were unconfirmed reports that the blast was a bomb aimed at police, and that at least one officer was killed.

Earlier police fired tear gas at stone-throwing students who had occupied the building in Islamabad.

The mosque was the scene of a bloody siege that ended earlier in July with the deaths of more than 100 people.

A protest grew on Friday as students demanded the return of the mosque's surviving pro-Taleban cleric, Abdul Aziz, who is in detention.

Security forces initially stood by as the protest began, but later dozens of police officers in full riot gear were deployed.

Cleric rejected

The protesters defaced the mosque, which had been repainted in pale colours by the authorities after the end of the siege.

They wrote "Red Mosque" in large Urdu script on the dome of the building. They also raised a black flag with two crossed swords - meant to symbolise jihad, or holy war.

Earlier protesters prevented a government-appointed cleric from leading Friday prayers at what was supposed to be the peaceful re-opening of the mosque.

"I was told everything would be peaceful. I was never interested in taking up this job and after today I will never do it," Mohammad Ashfaq told AFP news agency as he left the mosque with a police escort.

Renovated building

Troops stormed the mosque after its clerics and students waged an increasingly aggressive campaign to enforce strict Sharia law in Islamabad.

The mosque had become a centre of radical Islamic learning and housed several thousand male and female students in adjacent seminaries.


Protesters daubed the mosque with graffiti

The chief of Dyala prison in Rawalpindi told Pakistan's Supreme Court that 567 of the 620 students detained during the siege and 36-hour battle had been freed. Of those still being held, three are women.

A legal aid committee says it has received 58 complaints from relatives about men who are said to be missing following the siege.

The people killed in the siege included 11 soldiers and an as yet unknown number of extremists and their hostages.

The attack on the mosque was the fiercest battle fought by security forces in mainland Pakistan since President Musharraf vowed to dismantle the militant jihadi network in the country in the aftermath of the 11 September 2001 attacks on the US.