ISLAMABAD, 13 July 2007 — Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf yesterday regretted the loss of lives in the battle against extremists in the capital’s Red Mosque and the adjoining Madrasa Hafsa, but warned that such revolts anywhere in the country will be crushed.
The president was addressing the nation on state-run television and radio hours after some 650 kilometers away villagers of Basti Abdullah buried rebel cleric Abdul Rashid Ghazi with calls for jihad. Authorities allowed Abdul Rashid’s brother, Abdul Aziz, who was captured while trying to escape from the mosque wearing a burqa, to lead the funeral prayer.
In his speech, Musharraf said the raid on the Red Mosque was “inevitable” because it was a center for extremism. “I am sad over the loss of lives in the operation but it became inevitable for Pakistan,” he said.
Musharraf said the mosque and the adjoining madrasa had been “freed from the hands of terrorists.”
He also urged the thousands of madrasas in the country to preach moderation. “I ask the people who run these schools, the religious scholars, I appeal to them to please teach the true values of Islam,” he said. “I pray that may Allah save Pakistan from terrorists and extremists and their evils and put us on the road to moderation.”
Musharraf paid tribute to the troops and security forces who took part in the raid and the eight-day siege, adding: “I salute them for what they did for our beloved country.”
The president said paramilitary forces would be strengthened with more tanks and armored carriers in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan in the next six months to root out terrorism.
Journalists were shown a blackened room in Madrasa Hafsa where an army spokesman said a suicide bomber died along with a half-dozen victims whose bodies were so badly burned it was impossible to tell their age or gender.
Ghazi was killed Tuesday along with a handful of hardcore militants he had gathered around him in his drive to impose strict Islamic rule on the capital. His elder brother Abdul Aziz led the prayers before Ghazi’s body was buried at their ancestral village in the eastern province of Punjab.
Mourners smashed the coffin’s glass lid and tore a white cloth from the corpse’s face to see if it was really that of the 43-year-old cleric. There were chants of “Al-Jihad, Al-Jihad” as prayers were read for Ghazi. In contrast to the graveside scenes in Punjab, the burials of scores of Ghazi’s supporters took place before daybreak at a cemetery in Islamabad. No relatives were present.
A cleric read verses from the Qur’an, although full funeral rites were not observed, according to a Reuters photographer present. There were no names on the coffins, only number codes.
“All the victims have been fingerprinted and photographed and their DNA test has been taken to help parents and relatives identity them, then the bodies will be handed over,” said Rana Akbar Hayat, a senior city administrator supervising the burials.
Meanwhile, parents and relatives frantically searched hospitals, hoping to find missing children. “I have searched almost every hospital in the city,” sobbed Noor Mohammad from Pakistan’s North Waziristan tribal region, whose 13-year-old son Mirza Alam was in the mosque.
— Additional input from agencies
