LAHORE Moderates and rights activists rallied in Lahore yesterday to press the Government to act against the radical Muslim students behind a Taleban-style antivice campaign in the capital, Islamabad.

“Mullahs have ruined our society. They have distorted the image of Islam. We will not accept extremism anymore,” Jugnu Mohsin, a rights activist, told the rally after about 700 demonstrators had marched outside the city’s High Court.

Thousands of Pakistanis demonstrated in Karachi on Sunday to denounce the Islamist hardliners at the Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, in Islamabad for trying to impose their values.

The antics of stick-wielding, burqa-clad women students from Jamia Hafsa, an Islamist seminary next door to the mosque, have appalled moderates. But the Government of President Musharraf has avoided confrontation, partly out of fear that any violence could work in favour of the Islamists. (Reuters)

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