Pakistani religious students seize more police

ISLAMABAD, May 21 (Reuters) Hardline religious students confronting authorities in the Pakistani capital for months abducted three more policemen today, taking to five the number of police they are holding.

Taliban-supporting clerics and students associated with Islamabad's Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, have undertaken a series of provocative actions since January to press for various demands, and have even threatened suicide bomb attacks.

The radical students kidnapped four policemen last week to press for the release of some of their people whom authorities detained earlier. The students released two of the policemen on Saturday but grabbed more today, police said.

''They abducted three of our policemen who were on patrol.

They were forced into the madrasa,'' said city police officer Zafar Iqbal, referring to a religious school in the north of the city, whose students are associated with the Lal Masjid.

The behaviour of the students, reminiscent of the Taliban in Afghanistan, coupled with the authorities' failure to rein them in, has dismayed many residents of the country's cosmopolitan capital.

The government, struggling with a judicial crisis sapping its popularity, has tried to mollify the radical Islamists, and said last month all issues with them had been settled amicably.

But yesterday, following the kidnapping of four police, security forces picked up about 40 of the radicals in so-called preventative detentions in preparation for a crack down, a senior city administrator said.

ABSURDITY The Daily Times newspaper called the situation an absurdity in an editorial today and questioned whether authorities were putting the radicals up to their ''shenanigans'' to divert public attention from the government's mounting woes.

In January, female religious students occupied a children's library next to their religious school, to protest against a city campaign to remove mosques built illegally on state land.

The government stopped the campaign but the students still occupy the library.

Later, students went around video shops, urging shopkeepers to stop selling films deemed obscene. They burned a huge pile of videos and video discs on a city street.

Students also abducted three women they accused of running a brothel and forced them to confess in front of reporters before releasing them. They briefly abducted two policemen as well and seized two police vehicles at the same time.

The clerics and students, who are also well known for their anti-US stand, are demanding the government rebuild several mosques demolished in the campaign against land encroachment and enforce Islamic laws.

The mosque's top cleric, Abdul Aziz, last month threatened to unleash suicide bombers if the government used force to block their efforts to push for strict Islamic law.

Reuters AM GC2220