Pakistan mosque parents weep for 'daughters of Islam'

ISLAMABAD: Every day, when the shoot-on-sight curfew lifts, the parents of women and girls inside Pakistan's Red Mosque draw near the battle-scarred walls, and almost inevitably they leave in tears.   

Abdul Jamil, from Pakistani Kashmir, said hardline male students allowed him into the besieged mosque in central Islamabad on Thursday to look for his daughters Riffat, 16 and Nuzhat, 18, but he left empty-handed.   

"As I entered the mosque I started shouting 'Riffat, Riffat, Nuzhat, Nuzhat, this is your father,' but no one answered. There was complete silence for a few minutes," Jamil told while queuing at an army checkpoint.   

"Then I heard the voice of a mujahid (Islamic fighter) or student from a closed room, who told me to go back," the exhausted-looking 50-year-old said.   

"He said 'Your daughters are safe and are not sick. They are daughters of Islam,'" Jamil said.    Jamil -- who said he was one of the last parents to be allowed into the mosque amid fierce fighting -- said there was no sign of blood in the complex but the door and walls were damaged by bullets and shells.   

"The man sounded very determined. I asked him to let my daughters come out, but his reply was the same. This time his voice was loud," he said.   

The government says dozens of female students from the Jamia Hafsa religious school, which is attached to the mosque, have been held as human shields since the showdown began on Tuesday.   

Clerics insist no one is being held against their will, but say gunfire from troops has killed 30 females and 40 males.    

The women were buried at the mosque because post-mortem examinations are "un-Islamic", leader Abdul Rashid Ghazi said.   

President Pervez Musharraf said his security forces were only holding off from a full-scale assault to protect the women and children inside, but warned the militants that they must surrender or be killed.   

Their desperate families face risks too. On Friday one man who approached the mosque to look for his daughter was shot in the legs by militants and badly wounded.   

Each morning, the relatives join the long queue at an army registration centre set up on the edge of the battle zone for another chance to find their loved ones.   

Some hit out at the mosque's leaders. "I cannot understand why the mosque administration is punishing innocent women and children by not allowing them to come out of the mosque," said Syed Abid Hussain Shah, who came from Karachi to find his sister, Sadia Bibi, 21.   

"We talked to the mosque people through megaphones and asked them to release these people but our requests fell on deaf ears," he added. "I am really scared."   

But others criticised the government. Nasir Mehmud, from the nearby hill resort of Murree, started crying as he said that the Pakistani authorities had made no serious efforts to help.   

"Every day I stand here at the army picket helpless. Not a single official is available to help me out," said Mehmud, who came to find his niece, Memuna Mehmud.   

"The mosque must be taken to task for violating the law. But the government should first try to evacuate the children from the mosque," he said.   

Abdul Jamil said he would keep trying to find his daughters, even though he has had no success yet.    "I have no other choice but to come every day. I don't know who is responsible for this crisis, but I never thought this would happen," Jamil said.