ISLAMABAD, Feb 8: Questions were asked in the National Assembly from within the ruling coalition on Thursday on how the armed women of an Islamabad madressah were defying the state authority, after opposition filibuster and the government's fewness stalled a key media bill for the second day running.

Many eyebrows were raised in the house and in the galleries when a senior minister and a prominent ruling party member asked why authorities had failed in disarming the burqa-clad students of an unauthorised seminary attached to a turbulent mosque and get their 91-day-old occupation of a government-run children's library vacated.

Minister of state for interior Zafar Iqbal Warraich assured the house the students, some of whom were seen carrying either Kalashnikov assault rifles or long bamboo sticks, had promised to vacate the library by Thursday evening, but the standoff, which drew both militants and police from outside Islamabad, was continuing by then.

The students of the Hafsa madressah of Islamabad's Lal Masjid, near the busy Aabpara market, had occupied the nearby Model Children's Library of the Education Ministry on Jan 21 to protest against demolition by the capital authorities of two unauthorised mosques and their representatives used a news conference later to threaten suicide attacks if authorities used force against them.

"They are carrying rifles to enforce their illegal occupation (of the library)," Pakistan Muslim League (PML) member Mehnaz Rafi complained while speaking on a call-attention notice given by her and asked: "What kind of Islam is this?"

"If the government cannot enforce its writ in Islamabad, where else it can?" she questioned, to rare cheers by desk-thumping from the People's Party Parliamentarians (PPP), which dominated the opposition benches in the absence of Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) alliance of six religious parties who boycotted the lower house for the second day in protest against the passage of a women's rights bill by parliament in November.

"The face of Islam is being distorted," she said about the role of the madressah students, who say they will not vacate the library until the government rebuilt the two razed mosques and gave up plans to demolish more than 80 other unauthorised mosques and an unspecified number of madressahs built on state land in Islamabad, mostly during the 11-year rule of former military ruler General Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq.

But contrary to the PPP cheers, Ms Rafi found little support from her own party members despite repeated urgings from President Pervez Musharraf to oppose religious extremism, except equally strong feelings expressed by parliamentary affairs minister Sher Afgan Khan Niazi and a subdued and cautious statement by Mr Warraich.

"They are carrying Kalashnikovs although they are wearing burqas," Mr Niazi said about what he called a "bad" move by female students and called for their disarming and legal action against them.

But Mr Niazi provoked a strong rebuke from the Pakistan Muslim League-N member Khwaja Saad Rafique who said the minister had no right to say this — "you should be ashamed" — when the present rulers were "occupying the whole country with the force of guns and cannons."

Even Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain seemed keen to avoid any more noise about what has made the Islamabad administration a virtual hostage to seminary students and hardline religious figures at their back, saying "it is a sensitive matter" before adjourning the house until 9am on Friday.

Pemra bill stalled: The house earlier passed 19 clauses of the 28-clause Pakistan Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) (Amendment) Bill, designed mainly to allow newspaper owners to run private television channels, before Speaker Chaudhry Amir, acting on a ruling party advice, put it off until Friday apparently to avoid a forced adjournment if the PPP had pointed out a lack of quorum after being unhappy with the rejection of several amendments moved by its members Syed Zafar Ali Shah and Abdul Mujeeb Pirzada.

A mediation committee of both the National Assembly and the Senate has recommended passage of the bill with some amendments in the original draft after it had been shuttling between the two houses of parliament since it was first tabled in the assembly in October 2004.

Some of the amendments rejected on Thursday had sought representation of parliament members, journalists, civil society and provinces on a Pemra board whose strength is sought to be increased to 12 from nine, reduction of fine for violations to Rs500,000 from one-million-rupees, and empowering provinces to issue licences.

Before taking up the bill, the house refused leave for three identical opposition adjournment motions seeking a debate on the recent increase in the liquefied petroleum gas price after Mr Niazi said the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority had followed the required procedure in doing that and also held public hearings.

The Speaker assured the house members that steps were being taken for "the safety of your life, property and honour" after a PPP member from Sindh, Manzoor Hussain Wassan, complained that he found a television set, a digital video disc player and a tape-recorder stolen from his flat in the Parliament Lodges in Islamabad when arrived there on Jan 13, in the latest of several cases of alleged break-ins in the residential complex for parliamentarians.

The PPP secretary-general Raja Pervez Ashraf repeated a long-standing opposition demand that the Speaker issue an order for the production in the house of jailed PML-N acting president Javed Hashmi, to get only what has become a routine response that the chair would consider the matter again although a ruling rejecting the demand had already been issued.