As Abdul Rashid Ghazi's coffin was lowered into the grave on Thursday, mourners broke the glass lid and tore off the white cloth to make sure the body was really that of the 43-year-old radical cleric. Ghazi was killed after troops stormed the Red Mosque in the Pakistan capital Islamabad on Tuesday. His older brother, the mosque's chief cleric Abdul Aziz, led the prayers at the funeral attended by around 2,000 mourners in their home village in the eastern Punjab province in central Pakistan.
While Abdul Aziz was caught trying to flee the mosque last week disguised in a woman's burqa, Ghazi and other hardcore militants stayed put and mounted a last stand. After soldiers stormed the mosque in the early hours of Tuesday morning many of the militants including Ghazi were killed. An eyewitness told the Pakistan daily Dawn that he had seen hundreds of bodies covered in white clothes on the floor of the mosque compound.
The Red Mosque, situated near the government district, had been a hotbed of religious extremism for some time, and over the last six months students at a Koran school connected to the mosque had been trying to impose Taliban-style morality through kidnappings and threats.
Pakistani forces lay siege to the mosque for a week following violent street battles last Tuesday and attacks on government institutions like the Environment Ministry. The assault began after last-ditch attempts at negotiations with the militants broke down on Tuesday morning.
It took up to 35 hours after the raid to clear the final pockets of resistance in the complex and the last survivor, a wounded militant, was only found on Wednesday evening.
Final Death Toll Could Be in the Hundreds
Military spokesman Major General Waheed Arshad said that by Wednesday evening 73 bodies had been recovered from the complex, but Industry Minister Jehangir Khan Tareen told Pakistan's Aaj television station that there could be up to 250 bodies there.
Dozens of bodies have already been buried, without any relatives present. A cleric read verses from the Koran but full funeral rites were not observed. Police told reporters that the bodies have been fingerprinted and photographed and when they are identified they will be handed over to their families for reburial. Momin Agha, a city official, told Associated Press, that three of those buried were minors.
Pakistan's media are speculating that the death toll could rise even higher, but that the numbers are being kept down to avoid giving extremists a boost in the country. While there is deep anger at the government's actions in the tribal parts of northwest Pakistan, most of the country is siding with the President Pervez Musharraf's decision to crack down on the religious extremists.
On Wednesday al-Qaida's second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahri, called for revenge. "If you do not retaliate … Musharraf will not spare you," he said in an Internet video. "They rubbed your honor in the dirt." Ghazi had said he preferred martyrdom to surrender during the siege and days before he was killed he issued a statement saying he hoped his death would spark an Islamist revolution.
Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said that the government would act against any other madrassas, or religious schools, found to be involved in militancy. And Deputy Information Minister Tariq Azim said that while it was possible other madrassas in Pakistan had been hoarding weaponry like the Red Mosque, the assault had shown that the government "meant business."
smd/reuters/ap
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