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Brothel kidnap sparks protests
28/03/2007 20:38 - (SA)
Islamabad - Female students at a Muslim school in the Pakistani capital kidnapped a brothel owner, sparking an angry standoff on Wednesday between police and hundreds of stick-wielding fundamentalists.
Tensions mounted after police arrested four female teachers on Wednesday from the hardline Jamia Hafsa religious school near the city's Red Mosque in connection with the abduction.
The seminary's vice-principal, Abdul Rashid Ghazi, warned of a "holy war" if the teachers were not released by 16:00.
He also called for police to file a case against the abducted woman.
The incident comes amid concerns about the increasing "Talibanisation" of Pakistan, especially in its north-western regions bordering Afghanistan.
Ghazi said male students at the mosque had commandeered two police vans which had come to monitor the protests and were holding the drivers until the teachers were released.
'They served us tea'
Mosque officials later showed reporters the two policeman who were being kept by students in a room.
Police driver Qamar Abbas and constable Hamad Raza said they were passing by the mosque when the students seized them.
Raza said: "They have not mistreated us, they have served us tea and allowed us to keep our mobile phones. We are in touch with our officials and we are not facing any problem.
"We are told that negotiations were underway and we hope the matter will be over soon."
Hundreds of bearded male students waving bamboo sticks shouted slogans and sealed off streets leading to the mosque. Young men from other also madrassas have gathered inside the mosque.
'Forcibly' taken to madrassa
Ghazi, a well-known radical, said that on Tuesday night several female students from the madrassa went to the house of the woman, identified as Shamim, after locals said she was running a "vice den".
The students forcibly took her, her daughter and a daughter-in-law with them to the madrassa, he said.
Ghazi said: "People in the area welcomed the move and chanted slogans of Allah Akbar (God is greatest)."
The female students were keeping her at the mosque, he said.
"She (Shamim) had been quiet until this morning but now she has started raising hue and cry threatening that she would commit suicide if she was not released," he added.
The students had been warning the woman to stop her business for the past few weeks.
'Plans to demolish a mosque'
Ghazi later said the local administration had agreed to register a case against the woman for allegedly running the prostitution den in a bid to end the tension.
The Jamia Hafsa madrassa is already at the centre of a two-month standoff after female students occupied a nearby government-run children's library in protest at official plans to demolish a mosque in the capital.
- AFP
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