Islamabad: Around 700 students of the Lal Masjid mosque in Islamabad left their seminaries as the 1130 hours IST deadline set by the government for them to surrender ended.
At least 200 female students of the Jamia Hafsa came out of the seminary and claimed clerics of the mosque had told them to leave. Five hundred male students also came out of the mosque.
Earlier in the day, Pakistan President, General Pervez Musharraf, had announced a reward of Rs 5,000 for every student who surrendered besides pardoning them and giving travel facilities to all of them.
At least 21 people, including two soldiers and a journalist, have been killed and more than 200 injured since Tuesday morning in a gun battle between security forces and supporters of the conservative mosque.
Lal Masjid spokesmen claim that there are six bodies holed up inside the mosque.
Photojournalist Javed Khan, who worked for London-based Urdu channel DM Digital, was hit in the chest by a stray bullet and later died in hospital.
Three other journalists and cameramen sustained bullet wounds, and a few more were injured in the stone pelting and the teargas shelling.
One of the cameramen is said to be in a critical condition.
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Police, Army and Special Security Group Commandos imposed curfew around the mosque on Wednesday morning and blocking all roads to it. They then used loudspeakers to ask students of the female Jamia Hafsa seminary to surrender or face military action. Intermittent exchange of gunfire could be heard from the area. Additional ambulances and doctors were called in as a precautionary measure.
Pakistan's Deputy Interior Minister Zafar Warraich “requested” people inside the mosque and seminary “to come out and surrender”. “Those who surrender will be let off,” he said.
A mosque official said they were prepared to surrender on two conditions. "We are ready to lay down arms if President Musharraf gives us guarantee that no operation will be conducted against us," Ghazi Abdul Rashid, vice administrator of Lal Masjid, told Geo news channel.
"We will not surrender to the military but before ulemas (Islamic scholars)," he said.
The Musharraf administration decided to strike at the mosque at a high-level meeting, late on Tuesday night. Blaming clerics for the crisis, General Musharraf said while he was open to dialogue, he would not compromise on the fight against terrorism.
Radical clerics of the mosque have defied authorities for the last five months and attempted to impose a strict Islamic way of life in Islamabad. The government surrounded the mosque on Tuesday when its supporters abducted several Chinese women last month after accusing them of prostitution.
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