A total of 102 people lost their lives during the Lal Masjid military operation, a Pakistani official said Friday.
These include 11 officials of the law enforcement agencies and 91 civilians both inside and outside the Lal Masjid and Jamia Hafsa complex in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad, Interior Minister Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao told a news conference.
He said that 75 bodies were recovered from the mosque and the seminary. And three bodies of students from the tribal region of Bajaur were handed over to their relatives while 71 had been buried at an Islamabad graveyard.
He said all the bodies were photographed, finger-printed, samples for DNA test taken, bathed, wrapped in shrouds and buried after their funeral.
"Their graves would be identified and it would be up to their relatives whether they want them buried there or transfer them to ancestral areas," he said.
Sherpao said that 248 injured were taken to hospitals including officials and civilians. Of them, there are only 27 injured in the Pakistan Institute of Medical Science, Islamabad while others have been discharged after first aid.
And 44 injured from the law enforcement agencies have been admitted in military hospital in Rawalpindi, some 30 kilometers south of Islamabad.
He said that photographs of four or five persons resembled those of foreigners but their identities would be established after DNA test and other investigations.
There were 242 people still in custody and the process of debriefing was continuing, he said.
Sherpao said that curfew would be lifted Saturday from G-6 sector of Islamabad and lists of all those killed, injured, under detention and released would be displayed at the center established in the Sports Complex in Islamabad. He said that the Lal Masjid and Jamia Hafsa complex would, however, remain cordoned off.
He said that lists of those killed, injured, under detention and released would also be uploaded on the website of the Interior Ministry Friday night.
(Xinhua News Agency July 14, 2007)
