Dawn : Late-night round

Late-night round

By Mohammad Asghar and Munawer Azeem | ISLAMABAD, July 5

There was another round of intense firing around midnight outside the besieged Lal Masjid as the security forces captured five more militants trying to escape by scaling the mosque’s wall.

The firing continued for several minutes, triggering speculations that the final assault had begun. But till the filing of this report at around 2:10am the government held off.

Earlier, the law-enforcement agencies had captured 60 fleeing students and, according to sources, a number of them later confessed that they belonged to the banned Jamaat-ud-Dawa.

Among those captured on Thursday were students from three seminaries of Islamabad — Jamia Fareedia, Jamia Mohammadia and Dar-ul-Uloom, Barakahu.

Besides, the sources said, 67 other students surrendered during the day. However, no weapon was recovered from them.