NEW DELHI, JULY 11 : Prominent Muslim organisations and clerics in the country have decried the use of the Lal Masjid premises for terrorist activities even as the Urdu media here extensively covered the storming of the mosque in Islamabad by the Pakistan Army.

At the same time, however, community leaders said President Pervez Musharraf could have saved “innocent lives” had he not been in a hurry to “please the American bosses”.

“What happened in Lal Masjid is very unfortunate. The premises of the mosque should not have been used for terror activities. But the Pakistan President should have been more prudent as the military operation resulted in the death of so many innocent people,” permanent member of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board Kamal Faruqui told The Indian Express.

Maulana Khalid Rasheed of Firangi Mahal said it would have been better had the stalemate been “resolved through talks and consultations, though it would have taken some more time”. But he maintained that the “mosque being a place of worship should not have been used for keeping weapons. Such an action is both un-Islamic and unlawful”.

“Though we oppose any such action against a mosque, in this case it was against an activity which was militant in nature,” said Shia cleric Kalbe Jawed.

Meanwhile, Urdu newspapers and websites in the country played up the storming of the mosque. The incident was given detailed display in Hindustan Express, The Siasat Daily, Inquilab and The Munsif Daily.

The main story on the incident in The Munsif read: “Radical cleric Abdul Rashid Ghazi, who headed militants inside the pro-Taliban Lal Masjid in a tense week-long stand-off, was killed along with 88 of his associates when Pakistani troops stormed the premises to flush out heavily-armed hardliners holding a large number of women and children as hostages.”

The Siasat Daily played up Pakistan Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz’s statement that the incident had “damaged the image of Pakistan”.