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Wednesday, Mar 04, 2009
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Terrorists attack Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore

Nirupama Subramanian

Team’s convoy ambushed, six players injured, six policemen dead; Pakistan says it suspects foreign hand

Photo: AFP

Terror-struck: Sri Lankan cricketer Thilan Samaraweera, who was injured in the terror attack on the team, is being taken to hospital in Lahore on Tuesday.

ISLAMABAD: Grappling with the shock and the implications of an audacious Mumbai-style terrorist attack on the visiting Sri Lankan cricket team in the heart of Lahore, Pakistan said on Tuesday it suspected a “foreign hand.”

The team was fortunate to escape with injuries to six players. But the attack, carried out with guns and grenades, on a moving convoy of vehicles taking the cricketers from their hotel to Gaddafi Stadium, left seven persons dead, including six policemen in the escort team. An umpire was wounded.

Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister Rohita Bogollogama, was expected in Lahore after he and President Mahinda Rajapakse cut short a state visit to Nepal following the attack that bore some chilling similarities to the November 26 attack in Mumbai.

Police said at least a dozen men armed with heavy weapons, some of them masked, carried out the attack on the convoy as it made its way around Liberty Chowk, a well-known commercial district of Lahore, around 8.40 a.m.

Footage, captured by a television channel located at the site of the attack, showed at least three armed young men carrying rucksacks on their backs and running athletically while they shot at the vehicles.

One of the attackers was wearing a brown salwar-kameez while two others were dressed in jackets, jeans and white sports shoes.

None of the attackers was killed in what the police described as “a 25-minute exchange of fire” with the convoy’s police escort.

The government hailed the bravery of the policemen who were killed in the process, but there was widespread public criticism that none of the attackers was caught, even though they had no getaway vehicle and appeared to have just fled on foot.

The escaping attackers are said to have ditched some of their bags from which police said they recovered large quantities of weapons and ammunition.

Unconfirmed reports said armed men hijacked a car a few hundred metres from the site of the attack, opening the possibility that at least some attackers made good their escape in this vehicle.

Interior Ministry head Rehman Malik, speaking to journalists outside the National Assembly in the capital, said he did “not rule out a foreign hand.” Using more definite language later in the interaction, he said “there is a foreign hand.” But he declined to name the country, and rejected reports that some of the weapons found by the police carried Indian markings.

Official Pakistan made a pledge to the Sri Lankan government that it would hunt down the perpetrators of the attack and give them “exemplary punishment.” Both President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani spoke to President Rajapkse, who returned to Colombo.

A government statement dubbed the attack the handiwork of the “enemies of Pakistan-Sri Lanka friendship.”

Unofficial Pakistan, including its electronic media, was awash with speculative theories that Indian intelligence agencies were behind the attack. Many talking heads on television blamed India’s Research and Analysis Wing.

Quoting unidentified sources, Geo Television said an intelligence report had specifically warned that Indian intelligence agencies were plotting an attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team.

Media analysts also did not rule out the embattled Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, although Sri Lankan diplomatic sources in Islamabad said this was unlikely.

AFP reports:

David Morgan, president of the International Cricket Council, warned that Pakistan could not host international cricket unless it improved security.

The 2011 World Cup is due to be co-hosted by Pakistan, Sri Lanka, India and Bangladesh.

“Things will have to change dramatically in Pakistan, in my opinion, if any of the games are to be staged there,” Mr. Morgan told BBC television.

Pakistan cricket officials played down such worries.

Security fears have stopped Australia and India touring Pakistan recently and last month, concerns raised by other teams forced the ICC to move the 2009 Champions Trophy out of Pakistan.

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