Relatives of the missing converged on mortuaries and a sports stadium yesterday, desperately seeking their loved ones after the Pakistani Government announced that commandos had cleared the last holdouts of the Red Mosque siege.

“I have been coming here every day for the past three days to find out about my brother,” said Farid Ullah, from Dir district in North West Frontier Province. He had last spoken to Nawbzada, 20, a student at the mosque, last weekend. His name was not on the list of dead and missing posted outside the emergency ward of Islamabad’s main government hospital.

At a stadium where authorities set up an information centre for parents, about 100 people sought news of children who had been studying at a madrassa inside the mosque complex. “I am looking for my son. I don’t know whether he is alive,” said Jan Mohammed, 42. Mohammed Khan has not been seen in the aftermath of the siege and he had not spoken to his father since they had a phone conversation three days before the final assault on the complex.

Even as commandos cleared up the last pockets of resistance inside the compound, it remained unclear how many people had died in the stand-off and military authorities said that there would be no official statement on the final toll until after the area had been “sanitised”.Officials said that 73 militants and a rebel cleric were killed during the final assault. Nine soldiers have been confirmed dead and 29 wounded during the operation.

Shaukat Aziz, the Prime Minister, said that no bodies of women or children had been found and that it was unlikely that any would be discovered during the clean-up operation. “The major group of women was all together and came out all together,” he said, referring to 27 women and children who left the mosque on Tuesday.

Abdul Rashid Ghazi, the cleric who was killed in the attack, had claimed in a telephone interview a day before the assault that there were 1,800 men and women inside, but government officials rejected the figure as highly exaggerated.

Some reports suggested that the death toll could be far higher than the Government is prepared to accept. According to some estimates, about 500 men and women, in addition to militants, were inside when the army stormed the complex. Major-General Waheed Arshad said that 86 women, men and children surrendered during the operation on Tuesday.

It is unclear what happened to the hundreds of other men and women who are believed to have been inside. Many observers are also sceptical of Mr Aziz’s claim that no bodies of women and children were found.

Reports quoting a relief organisation said that the Government had asked it to prepare 400 coffins.

The possibility that large numbers of women and children may have been killed is extremely damaging to

President Musharraf and could turn public opinion further against a military ruler who already faces a backlash over his bungled attempts to dismiss the country’s chief justice before elections this year. The issue has helped Islamic extremists to mobilise against the President. Tensions rose in the North West Frontier Province, where most of the Red Mosque seminary students came from, yesterday when about 500 people protested, chanting “Death to Musharraf”.

Ayman al-Zawahiri, the al-Qaeda second in command, released a recording last night calling the Pakistani security forces “the Crusaders' hunting dogs” and imploring Pakistani Islamists to “Die honourably in the fields of jihad, and don't live like women with moustaches and beards”.

In neighbouring Afghanistan, Mansoor Dadullah, a senior Taliban commander, urged Muslims to launch suicide attacks on Pakistani security forces, calling the assault “a cruel act”.

During the final hours of the operation inside the compound, troops fought hand-to-hand in underground rooms and blew up foxholes where militants had been entrenched.

Back at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Institute Hospital, Bacha Khan was overjoyed when he saw the name Hayat Khan on the wounded list. His joy turned to disbelief when hospital staff told him that his younger brother he had been taken away by the military for questioning.

The body of Ghazi has been transported for burial to his native village of Rojhan in southwestern Pakistan. His brother Abdul Aziz, the mosque’s chief who was arrested trying to escape from the compound last week, was allowed to attend the funeral.

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