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ISLAMABAD : The leader of a radical Pakistani mosque was arrested while trying to flee in a woman's burqa on Wednesday as security forces stepped up pressure on a few hundred hardcore followers still holed up inside.
Firebrand cleric Abdul Aziz's capture sparked an exodus from Islamabad's Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, with 1,200 male and female students surrendering to the authorities a day after clashes there left 16 people dead.
The government of embattled President Pervez Musharraf hailed the capture of the firebrand preacher as a major success, after months of criticism that it was failing to tackle extremism.
"After all the things he has said and all the oaths he took from his students that they should embrace martyrdom with him, look at this man," deputy information minister Tariq Azeem told AFP.
Aziz was caught after a group of 20 burqa-clad women from the mosque started screaming as they were taken to a nearby school for security checks after giving themselves up, saying the procedure was un-Islamic.
"Our men spotted his (Aziz's) unusual demeanour. The rest of the girls looked like girls but he was taller and had a pot belly," a security official said on condition of anonymity.
Paramilitary officer Manzoor Ahmad, who saw the incident, said a policeman spotted one member of the crowd staying silent.
"The officer pounced on the lady, and as he grabbed her, the burqa came off and his beard fell out. He asked the man who he was and he said 'I am Maulana (senior cleric) Abdul Aziz," the soldier said.
Television footage showed armed intelligence officials dragging the bearded Aziz towards a black Toyota Corolla and driving away at high speed.
Aziz's daughter and two of the children of his brother, deputy mosque leader Abdul Rashid Ghazi, were also arrested, officials said.
Ghazi remained inside the mosque along with as few as 200 students and 60 children, officials said. Religious leaders were negotiating with him by telephone to give himself up and end the siege.
Troops and police, backed by armoured personnel carriers and helicopter gunships, moved forward to secure the entire area around the mosque, where a shoot-on-sight curfew was imposed in the early hours of Wednesday.
"Ghazi is seeking a graceful exit from this situation. But he has to surrender unconditionally," Azeem said.
Students briefly exchanged gunfire with security forces shortly before his detention and again afterwards, officials said.
Police brought the body of a 23-year-old student shot on Wednesday to hospital, doctor Khalid Hussain told AFP. Troops earlier killed another student and a mentally-ill man as part of the curfew.
Military ruler Musharraf, already facing a political crisis ahead of elections later this year, ordered the crackdown after the mosque brazenly tried to set up a Taliban-style justice system in the heart of Islamabad.
Those holding out were believed to include Taliban insurgents from the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan and jihadis belonging to banned Pakistani sectarian groups.
Hundreds of troops built sandbag bunkers around the mosque overnight and rolled out barbed wire to block off all roads. Electricity to the area was cut during the night.
Musharraf, embroiled in nationwide protests over his suspension of the country's top judge, had faced mounting criticism over his failure to crack down on the mosque.
In apparent revenge attacks, a policeman was killed by a rocket and four civilians died in a blast targeting a police chief's car in the northwestern region of Swat, a stronghold of one of the banned groups linked to Aziz.
Meanwhile six Pakistani soldiers and five civilians died in a suicide car bombing on Wednesday in a troubled tribal frontier region that officials said was another possible reprisal.
The Red Mosque standoff began in January when female students took over a government-run children's library. In April the clerics set up an Islamic court that issued a "fatwa" or religious decree against a paragliding female minister. - AFP/yy/de
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