After completing the massacre of 1500 young girl students of Jamia Hafsa and numerous males, and after the pillage, plunder and destruction of the holy environs of Laal Musjid,
Musharraf’s gangs hurriedly renovated the Musjid and appointed a stooge, Muhammad Ashfaq to be the new ‘imaam’ of Laal Musjid, which he (Musharraf) renamed ‘central mosque’. The Musjid was supposed to have re- opened for Salaat on Friday 27th July.

The pro-Musharraf Daily Dawn of Karachi, Pakistan, reported the ‘re- opening’ in the following terms: “The Lal Musjid and its surrounding areas witnessed pitched battles between secu- rity forces and supporters of Maulana Abdul Aziz, former chief cleric of the mosque, after worshippers refused to offer Friday prayers behind a govern- ment-appointed imam.

The protestors, many of them stu- dents of Jamia Fareedia, repainted the walls of the mosque red, which had been turned beige on the orders of the authorities.

Just before prayers hundreds of sup- porters of Maulana Aziz sprang into action, slipped into the mosque and reoccupied it for hours, exposing the capability of all intelligence agencies and security departments as they failed to forsee the reaction from the worship- pers who were angry over the reported killing of their friends and colleagues in a recent military operation.
The battle between worshippers and security forces raised questions over whether prayers could be offered in the mosque in future.

“The efforts of the government and the local administration to normalise the situation in Sector G-6 by com- pletely lifting curfew and appointing Maulana Muhammad Ashfaq as the official imam of the mosque proved futile as the area people and other sup- porters of the defunct administration of Lal Musjid asked the local authorities to bring back Maulana Abdul Aziz to the mosque for leading the Friday prayers.

“We were expecting a slight reaction of people but what happened was be- yond our expectation.” a senior official of the local administration said. (Dawn, 28 July, 2007) As the protesting supporters of Mau- lana Abdul Aziz emerged from Laal Musjid, they chanted: “Musharraf is a dog!” They called for an Islamic revolution. The supporters painted the Musjid red and wrote ‘Laal
Musjid’ in large Urdu script on the dome of the Musjid. A black flag with two swords was raised on top of the Musjid.

The government-appointed imam, as he left the Musjid in panic with a police escort, said: “I was told everything would be peaceful. I was never inter- ested in taking up this job. After today,
I will never do it.”