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ISLAMABAD : A Pakistani cleric under siege in a mosque in the capital said Friday he would rather die than surrender to government forces.
The defiant statement by Abdul Rashid Ghazi, the deputy leader of the Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, reversed an earlier conditional offer to give himself up.
"We have decided that we can be martyred but we will not surrender. We are ready for our heads to be cut off but we will not bow to them," he told the private Geo television station.
"This may be my last conversation with you."
Ghazi, whose brother Abdul Aziz was captured on Wednesday while trying to flee the mosque dressed in a burqa, urged the government to lift the siege of the mosque.
Officials have said that women and children are being held inside as human shields, but Ghazi said they were there of their own free will.
"I had said that we will fight to the last, and now after seeing what they have done to the mosque and the way they have martyred children, I ask them to stop this brutality. My patience is running out," Ghazi said.
"What we have decided was after seeing their stubbornness. They think that they are powerful like Russia and America. They are misusing our military," he added.
"We were ready to leave everything in order to stop bloodshed." - AFP/ch
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