ISLAMABAD, May 23: Security forces are reported to have finalised a plan to launch an ‘operation’ against militants of Lal Masjid and are waiting for a green signal from the government, a source in the local administration told Dawn on Wednesday.

However, the government seems reluctant to use force against the Lal Masjid administration which has challenged the writ of the government many times in the past.

An interior ministry spokesman has recently said the government will try to resolve the issue through dialogue, instead of raiding the madressah.

The source said some 7,000 personnel of the Punjab Police had reached the capital and over 1,500 men of Rangers were ready to assist about 7,000 local policemen in case of any action.

“We can take over Lal Masjid, its allied seminaries and the government library illegally occupied by Jamia Hafsa students in a few minutes, if the operation is launched,” a senior official of the administration said.

According to the plan, all services of Lal Masjid, including water and electricity supply, would be suspended as the first step. Secondly, the entire complex of the mosque would be surrounded by the security personnel and no one would be allowed to get in or out of the mosque.

The Lal Masjid administration has warned the government that they have a brigade of suicide bombers, and if any raid is launched there will be a number of suicide attacks throughout the country.

Maulana Abdul Rashid Ghazi, deputy in-charge of Lal Masjid has said in a statement that madressah students have sufficient amount of arms to resist any action planned against them.

Meanwhile, Maulana Ghazi issued a statement claiming that the government had no support of the public in its stance against the mosque administration.

He accused the interior ministry of sabotaging the process of dialogue between the government and Lal Masjid initiated by Pakistan Muslim League president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain. “I believe that the interior ministry did not give any importance to the orders of the PML chief who had assured us that all of our demands would be fulfilled, including the reconstruction of demolished mosques in Islamabad and the enforcement of Sharia,” he said.