Pak cops released in exchange for extremists
Afp, Islamabad
Hardline clerics said yesterday that they had released two Pakistani policemen held hostage at a mosque here, after a deal was struck with authorities to free four extremists. The clerics said two other policemen still captive will only be released when a total of 11 men detained by the Pakistani government are freed. Dozens of students from a madrasa, or seminary, attached to the Red Mosque in Islamabad, seized the four policemen on Friday evening, triggering a tense stand-off at the mosque between armed police and the radical students. "We released two policemen late Saturday as a goodwill gesture," the mosque's deputy leader Abdul Rashid Ghazi told AFP. "None of our 11 students have returned yet, but we hope to get back four of them shortly in the first phase and rest afterwards as agreed by the authorities," he said. The government has not commented on the trade-off, which was greeted in local press with the headlines "Government bows to Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) mullahs" and "Lal Masjid gets its own way." The apparent concession came despite President Pervez Musharraf recently vowing to tackle what he said was rising militancy in Pakistan.
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