Pakistani cleric offers surrender terms at mosque

ISLAMABAD, July 5 (Reuters) A Pakistani cleric holed up in a mosque in Islamabad today said he and his student followers were willing to surrender, raising hopes of an end to a confrontation in which 19 people have died.

Abdul Rashid Ghazi was speaking in a telephone interview broadcast on Geo Television as security forces surrounded the Red Mosque, where he and hundreds of followers had held off a siege since Tuesday.

The cleric, whose elder brother was arrested yesterday night trying to escape wearing a woman's all-enveloping burqa, said his followers should be let go if authorities could not prove they belonged to any banned militant groups, or were not wanted for any crime.

''If they are linked to any banned organisation, it can be verified,'' he said, adding there had been a smear campaign to make people believe that militant groups were among the students. ''It can be looked into ... those who are not should be let go.'' He added: ''I and my mother should be allowed to live in the mosque until I make some alternative arrangements ... I should be given time to make arrangements.'' Violence erupted outside the mosque on Tuesday after a months-long stand-off between the authorities and the clerics and their followers.

Deputy Information Minister Tariq Azim Khan gave a guarded government response.

''If he says that his men are ready to lay down arms, he should not attach any condition. We will not accept any conditions,'' Khan told Reuters.

''He should allow everybody, women, children to come out. He can come out with them ... nobody is going to fire on them, hurt them.'' ''He should surrender himself ... If there are cases against him, let the court decide.'' ''HUMAN SHIELDS'' Earlier, Khan told a news conference that, based on reports from some of the students who had quit the mosque, the militants appeared to be using women and children as human shields.

''A large number of women and children are being held hostage by armed men in room,'' he said.

The official death toll from the three days of violence in the Pakistani capital rose to at least 19.

Liberal politicians have for months pressed President Pervez Musharraf, who faces elections later this year, to crack down on the cleric brothers in charge of the mosque and their movement.

Hundreds of police and soldiers have sealed off the Red Mosque and imposed a curfew in the neighbourhood around it. Water, gas and power supplies to the mosque have been cut.

The Lal Masjid movement is part of a phenomenon known as ''Talibanisation'' -- the spread of militant influence from remote tribal regions on the Afghan border into central areas.

In an earlier television interview on state-run television, Ghazi's captured brother, Abdul Aziz, put the number of students in the mosque at about 850, including 600 women and girls.

The government estimates there are 50 to 60 hard-core militants among them, armed with automatic weapons, grenades and petrol bombs.

Reuters SY DB2329