Pakistani cleric vows to hold abducted policemen

ISLAMABAD, May 20 (Reuters) A cleric from a radical Pakistani mosque at the centre of stand-off with the government said today two abducted policemen will remain in detention unless authorities freed 11 religious students.

''We will let them go once the authorities release our people,'' Abdul Rashid Ghazi, a senior cleric at Islamabad's Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, told Reuters.

Four plainclothes police were snatched on Friday by students from outside the mosque in the heart of Islamabad, but two were released a day later as a ''gesture of goodwill'', Ghazi said.

A court in Islamabad also ordered yesterday the release on bail of five of the students, but they were still being held because the bail money had not been paid.

''They have not released our people and we don't know their whereabouts,'' Ghazi complained.

A police official said the court decision to release the students was a coincidence and had nothing to do with the threat by the cleric.

The abductions have resurrected a confrontation with the government that first began in January, when female students occupied a public library next to the mosque's compound to protest against the destruction of several mosques illegally constructed on state-owned land.

The radicals of Lal Masjid have briefly abducted police before, but their anti-vice campaign in the city caused the biggest stir.

They raided a nearby bordello, briefly detaining three women, and they put pressure on owners of music and video shops to shut their businesses.

Last month, the mosque's top cleric, Abdul Aziz, threatened to unleash suicide bombers if the government used force to stop his movement from establishing its own Islamic shariah courts.

The government has sought to appease the radicals by teling them that their grievances will be dealt with, and a leader of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League said last month that all issues have been settled amicably through negotiation.

Liberals have been disturbed by the government's failure to act more forcibly against religious radicals in the face of what the media is calling a growing trend of ''Talibanisation'' in Pakistan.

REUTERS ABM KP1450