Hardline Pakistani students kidnap Chinese women

ISLAMABAD, June 23 (Reuters) Hardline religious students from a mosque in Pakistan's capital, Islamabad, kidnapped nine people including six Chinese women early today, accusing them of ''immoral activities'', the Islamists said.

The abductions were the most provocative action by the Taliban-supporting students associated with the Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, that they have undertaken since January to press for various demands.

''The foreign women were involved in prostitution in a massage centre,'' the students said in a statement.

Chinese embassy officials were not immediately available for comment. China is Pakistan's most steadfast ally and the abductions are bound to embarrass President Pervez Musharraf.

Lal Masjid cleric Abdul Rashid Ghazi told Reuters seven of the nine detained were Chinese and two Pakistanis. Six of the Chinese were women, he said.

''We greatly respect Pakistan-China friendship but it doesn't mean that foreign women can come here and indulge in such vulgar activities,'' Ghazi said. ''We had complaints that that these women did massage for men but it was more than that.'' Minister of State for Interior Zafar Iqbal Warraich told parliament nine people had been detained including three Chinese women. Mosque authorities had been ordered to release them.

Authorities have been confronting the clerics and students at the mosque for months. The radicals have threatened suicide bombings if force was used against them.

Trouble began in January when female students attached to the mosque occupied a library next to their school to protest against a campaign to remove mosques built illegally on state land.

In March, the students abducted three Pakistani women they accused of running a brothel and held them for several days before forcing them to confess and releasing them.

They have also abducted and briefly held policemen and have warned video shops to stop selling Western films deemed obscene.

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 relatively cosmopolitan capital.

''NATURAL REACTION'' Followers of the Lal Mosque have become increasingly bold in their self-styled anti-vice campaign.

Warraich said the students had gone to what he described as a Chinese health centre, in a residential neighbourhood, in three vehicles in the middle of the night.

''We have asked the mosque authorities to release them unconditionally or else action will be taken,'' he said.

The students denied kidnapping anyone and said they wanted to persuade the six foreign women and three men to give up their vulgar ways. ''It is a natural reaction by students against vulgarity and obscenity,'' they said.

Musharraf has said he felt humiliated by his inability to oust the radical clerics from their city-centre mosque. They have close to 5,000 followers drawn from associated madrasas.

Fears of a backlash if any of the female students were hurt in an assault has stayed the government's hand, he said.

Instead, the government, which is struggling with a judicial crisis sapping its popularity, has tried to mollify the Islamists.

Some government critics have accused authorities of putting the students up to their stunts to divert attention from the government's woes.

REUTERS GP BD1346