Cleric calls off talks to protest copter surveillance of seminary compound

Islamabad: The defiant militant cleric of Lal Masjid declared cancellation of talks with the government and accused the officials of sabotaging negotiations by shooting aerial video of the compound where female students were studying.

Terming the ongoing talks as useless and unproductive, Maulana Abdul Aziz told Gulf News yesterday he doesn't want to waste more time in such talks and alleged that government was preparing for action against his mosque and Jamia Hafsa.

"A military helicopter flew over Jamia Hafsa compound last evening and shot a video of the burqa clad [veiled] female students while they were studying, for at least 12 minutes," he claimed.

The cleric demanded the government to return the reported video to him so that he could destroy that movies and protested that this act was in violation of government assurances of solving the crisis peacefully.

Aziz also claimed that "the same helicopter released nerve gas in the compound which made the female students unconscious temporarily" but the government sources denied any incident took place yesterday in federal capital.

Negotiator

The cleric said that after the helicopter incident, he contacted government's chief negotiator and president of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League's Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain who said that although he is unaware of such incident he will investigate.