Islamabad: Veiled in burqas and armed with canes, scores of female seminary students have occupied a children's library in the Pakistani capital to protest government plans to demolish mosques and madrassas built without official permission.
The unusual protest has pit authorities, who are trying to stop runaway land encroachment, against the chief of one of the country's largest Islamic schools and raised questions whether the hard-line institute, long suspected of militant links, is being allowed to operate above the law.
The chief cleric of the Lal Masjid mosque that runs the seminary, Abdul Rashid Ghazi, is an outspoken critic of Pakistan's support of the US-led war on terror. His thousands of male students are often at the forefront of anti-government and anti-US rallies in Islamabad.
Ghazi denies he has masterminded the sit-in, that began in late January, but clearly supports it.
"The protest is their form of jihad (holy war). They started it on their own and since we are sharing the same feeling, I have offered them support," Ghazi said. "They are ready to make sacrifices to protect not just their school, but mosques."
About 200 students currently occupy the children's library, which is run by the municipal authority and is sandwiched between the mosque and the sprawling Jamia Hafsa seminary, which provides a free Islamic education for some 6,500 girls and women.
Comments
0 comment