ISLAMABAD, April 9: The government on Monday decided to rely mainly on negotiations for resolving the Madressah Hafsa-Lal Masjid standoff, but kept the option open for some ‘administrative action’.

Sources privy to a high-level meeting told Dawn that the president and the prime minister had directed the security agencies to take `legal action’ for enforcing the writ of the state, but asked them to ensure that no harm came to the innocent.

Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, the chief of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League, and representatives of different security agencies were present at the deliberations at the president’s Rawalpindi camp office.

The sources said that while intelligence agencies were for an operation against the militants, the other participants counselled patience.

They argued that a hasty action could aggravate matters, a prospect which, as one official put it, the government could not afford in the midst of the judiciary crisis.

They said Chaudhry Shujaat was likely to hold another meeting with the heads of Jamia Hafsa and Lal Masjid sooner rather than later. The PML chief had a lengthy dialogue with the two cleric brothers, Maulana Abdul Rashid Ghazi and Maulana Abdul Aziz, on Saturday.

Chaudhry Shujaat apprised President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz about the demands put forward by the two maulanas, the sources said.

The two brothers are seeking a clampdown by the government on ‘obscenity’ and the initiation of measures for the enforcement of ‘Islamic tenets’. Their demands include the reconstruction of a number of mosques demolished by the CDA and the withdrawal of notices sent to a large number of others.

The religious leaders also sought compensation for the `damage caused to mosques and seminaries’.

Informed sources said the government’s move to bring in Chaudhry Shujaat was aimed at appeasement of the religious leaders, who were angry with the administration for refusing to give financial support to institutions run by them. They said the administration had agreed to support the mosque and the seminary as part of an earlier deal.