"We have decided that we can be martyred but will not surrender. We are ready for our heads to be cut off but we will not bow to them," he told a private TV channel. "This may be my last conversation with you." There was no immediate official reaction.
Heavy gunfire and explosions rocked the mosque early on Friday and there was no call for pre-dawn prayers from the mosque's loudspeakers, indicating the damage inflicted by security forces on the fortified complex. Troops backed by armoured personnel carriers and helicopter gunships have been moving closer to the mosque and have blown up much of its surrounding walls.
A mosque official, on condition of anonymity, said that there were casualties in the early Friday gunbattles and the building had been hit by further mortar fire from security forces. "There are casualties on our side, but I cannot tell how many," he told AFP. Hundreds of students are still inside the mosque compound, along with up to 60 "hardcore" armed militants, officials have said. Interior ministry spokesman Javed Cheema said: "There is no turning back. It has to be taken to its logical end."
One boy, who surrendered himself after sneaking out of the fortified compound housing the mosque and a girls madrasa, said older students were forcing younger ones to stay. "Food is running low and water is also limited," Ashraf Swati, 15, told Reuters, adding that there were several wounded students inside and the stench from dead bodies hung in the air.
Minister for Information and Broadcasting Muhammad Ali Durrani in a press conference urged political and religious leaders, intellectuals, NGOs, and general public to come forth and develop pressure on Lal Masjid-Jamia Hafsa administration to let the innocent children, female and male students come out of the premises of the mosque.
Durrani told journalists that almost all the female and male students, who came out had been sent to their respective homes after their registration. When asked if the operation against the Lal Masjid authorities had been launched to avert the public attention from All Parties Conference (APC) being held in London, the Minister said it was not appropriate to link the two.
Pakistan Muslim League President, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain contacted Maulana Abdul Aziz requesting him to let the young male and female students of the seminaries get out of the tense situation. He said that Abdul Aziz's response was that students are there at their will adding some of them have no families and wholly dependent on the seminaries.