Lal Masjid brigade releases Chinese nationals

Islamabad , June 23 (UNI) Pakistani authorities today secured safe release of the nine Chinese nationals, including six women, almost 15 hours after their abduction by the vice and virtue squad of the radical Lal Masjid.

''We have released all the nine Chinese nationals after authorities assured us that all the massage centers, which are involved in un-Islamic activities including prostitution will be closed in Islamabad,'' deputy administrator of the mosque Abdul Rashid Ghazi told reporters this evening.

Most of the massage centres were engaged in prostitution business, he alleged adding that they would charge Pakistani 1,000 rupees for massage and additional 500 rupees for sex.

''Our students were ridiculed when they asked the owner and management of the massage shut the un-Islamic business,'' he said, adding that ''this left us with no option but to raid the centre.'' The Taliban-styled vice and virtue, comprising male and female students of the seminaries affiliated to the mosque, raided the massage centers midnight last night and forcibly took Chinese nationals to the Jamia Hafsa compound.

The mosque hit headlines in March this year after the burqa-clad female students of Jamia Hafsa abducted the female manager of a local brothel.

The students, who had occupied a children's library in January this year in protest against demolition of several mosques by local administration, forced the brothel manager, identified as ''aunty Shamim'' to confess to her sins in front of the media. She later fled the city in fear of her life.

Baton wielding male students of the mosque also stormed local markets in April and asked Video/DVD centers to shut their ''un-Islamic'' business.

The morality patrols followed establishment of the so-called Shariat Court by masjid's chief cleric Maulana Abdul Aziz, who asked to take action against brothels, gambling dens and alcohol outlets in the city or prepare for an action by students of the mosque.

A tide of extremism has buffeted terrorism-hit Pakistan in recent months especially after the government signed controversial peace deals with local Taliban in the troubled tribal regions of North and South Waziristan, which continue to serve as sanctuaries for hundreds of foreign militants.

Most of these militants fled the 2001 US-led military operation in Afghanistan and allegedly set up military training camps in Pakistan to use the country's soil for attacks on foreign military forces operating in the insurgency-hit Afghanistan .

UNI