Residents of the G-6 also reported that several bullets fell in their houses following an intensive exchange of gunfire at on the same time. Talking to media on telephone, Abdul Rashid Ghazi, Naib Khateeb of Lal Mosque, has said a bid to shoot down President Pervez Musharraf's plane was apparently in revenge for the bloody government siege of his mosque, in which he alleged that 70 students had died.
The claim came as fighting intensified on the fifth day of the stand-off between and security forces, with gunfire and blasts echoing around the city. "I received a telephone call yesterday from a man I did not know," who offered his "congratulations" before news of Friday's attack on Musharraf's aircraft became public, Ghazi said.
"He said, 'I fired at Musharraf's plane just a while ago.' He said that Musharraf survived," said Ghazi. Security officials said earlier they were probing possible links between the operation and the failed bid to shoot down the plane as it took off from a military airbase at Rawalpindi.
President Musharraf has survived at least three other militant attempts to kill him. Police have said they found two anti-aircraft guns and a machine gun on the roof of a house near the airbase after the attack.
An experienced anti-terrorism official said the shooting was probably planned in advance "but because of the events of (the) Lal Mosque they might have advanced the plan and faltered." Fierce clashes accompanied by deafening blasts erupted in the dead of night and again at lunchtime on Saturday, when mosque students exchanged gunfire with troops and hurled grenades.
A spray bullet also hit Khalil, a resident of G-6/I while he was sitting in his home. He was later admitted to Polyclinic hospital. After the blasts armoured vehicles moved in and heavy exchanges of fire erupted at the mosque.
However, till filing of this report, law enforcement agencies had not entered the building of Lal Mosque and Jamia Hafsa to wind up the saga of the much publicised mosque issue once for all.
Hopes to escape the holed up children and female students of the Jamia Hafsa were shattered when a MMA delegation could not visit the mosque and Jamia Hafsa due to heavy gunfire while they were on their way to the mosque premise in the afternoon. The delegation wanted to enter the Lal Masjid in a bid to convince Abdul Rashid Ghazi to release the children and women holed up inside the Jamia Hafsa and the mosque.
"We have been prevented because the forces of Musharraf are hell-bent on spilling the blood of women and children," said MP Maulana Shah Abdul Aziz, the leader of the delegation. But Rashid Ghazi, who repeated his determination to die rather than surrender, said the mosque had enough rations, arms and ammunition to "fight for another 25 to 30 days and we will do that, God willing."
In a blow to the mosque's resistance, police in a pre-dawn swoop seized control of the Jamia Faridia without a shot being fired, officials said. Police said the Jamia Faridia was the "powerhouse" for the Lal Mosque and that several students were involved in the current violence.
"Police stormed into Jamia Faridia and arrested dozens of students and shifted them to an unknown place," a senior security official said. Unlike the previous days, not a single student surrendered on Saturday except a 13-year-old boy Jawad Khan, who managed to save his life after coming out of the mosque complex through a damaged portion of the wall of the Jamia Hafsa.
Jawad told media that at least 40 female and 80 male students holed up in the Lal Masjid and Jamia Hafsa and most of them wanted to leave the premises but were not being allowed to do so. He also claimed that the armed men of the Lal Masjid forcibly distributed them with papers writing wills of the students.
Gunshot and shelling also continued during the curfew hours, terrifying the residents, who came out of the houses to purchase necessities of daily use.
Meanwhile, Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao said at a news briefing that the government wants to end the operation as soon as possible, however, he said, strategy would be followed to save maximum lives of females and students stuck up inside the premises.
He said that shots were fired from the ventilators of Lal Masjid, which caused damage to the windows of a school in the area and the constant firing from the Masjid and Jamia Hafsa is a proof that the armed persons inside have sufficient stock of arm and ammunition.
He said that last night some extremists broke the front wall of the mosque and started firing but the retaliatory firing by the law enforcement agency made them to flee. A Jawan of the law enforcement agency was injured in the cross firing, he added. He said that 595 male and three female students are with law enforcement agencies and the remaining were released.
Sherpao said that the timing of the curfew would be extended and it would be imposed in limited areas to facilitate the residents of G-6 sector. It is also learnt that law enforcement agencies arrested six suspicious persons from Ghausia Masjid G-6 and shifted them to some undisclosed place.
Besides, a high level meeting held with Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz in the chair, attended by Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao, Information Minister Mohammad Ali Durrani, Religious Affairs Minister Mohammad Ijazul Haq, Defence Minister Rao Sikander Iqbal, Minster for Railways Sheikh Rashid Ahmed and other high officials to review the so far progress of the operation launched against the hard-liners of the Lal Masjid some five days back.
A three-member committee was also formed comprising Interior, Information and Religious Affairs ministers to review and handle the offshoots of the ongoing operation.
The authorities relaxed curfew from 8:30am to 9:30am in the morning and 2:30 to 4:30 in the evening. During the relaxation, a large number of residents of the G-6 area came out of their houses and purchased items of their daily use. The much-disturbed residents widely complained about the government's strategy to prolong the operation, causing to multiply the miseries of the residents.