Adil Najam
In this still-developing story, unknown gunmen opened fire on the Sri Lankan cricket team bus near Gaddafi Stadium, Lahore leaving several security officials dead and several Sri Lankan cricketers were rushed to the hospital.
The News is reporting at least 5 security officials dead while The Times reports that as many as 8 Sri Lankan crickets might have been injured. However, latest reports point out that the injuries to the players are minor, although the shock is deep.
According to an earlier report from the Associated Press:
LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) — A dozen masked gunmen armed with rifles and rocket launchers attacked a vehicle carrying members of Sri Lanka’s national cricket team Tuesday, wounding at least two players and killing five police officers, officials said.
The attack in Lahore came at a time of unrest in both Pakistan and Sri Lanka, both of whom are trying to defeat insurgencies. It was unclear who was behind the assault, but it appeared to have been carefully coordinated. City police chief Haji Habibur Rehman said five policemen died in the shooting and that two players were wounded. A Pakistan Cricket Board security official had earlier said eight players were wounded.
“It was a terrorist attack and the terrorists used rocket launchers, hand grenades and other weapons,” Rehman said, adding that the police were hunting down the attackers who managed to flee. “Our police sacrificed their lives to protect the Sri Lankan team.”
He said one wounded player was hit in the leg while the other received a bullet in the chest.
Sri Lankan team manager Brendon Kruppu said the team’s batsman, Kumar Sangakkara, was among those injured near Gaddafi Stadium ahead of a game. Rehman said 12 masked gunmen participated in the attack. Footage from the scene Tuesday showed the team’s white van with its front window shattered as security officials tried to gain control of the scene in an intersection.
Security concerns have plagued Pakistan for years and some foreign sports teams have refused to play here.Most of the violence in Pakistan occurs in its northwest regions bordering Afghanistan, where Taliban and al-Qaida militants have established strongholds. Lahore has not been immune from militant violence however, and at least one attack in recent months in the northwest has occurred next to a sports stadium. Sri Lanka appeared on the brink of crushing the Tamil Tiger rebels after more than a quarter century of civil war.
In recent months, government forces have pushed the guerrillas out of much of the de facto state they controlled in the north of the Indian Ocean island nation and trapped them in a small patch of land along the coast. The rebels, who are fighting for an independent state for Sri Lanka’s Tamil minority, are listed as a terror group by the U.S. and EU and are routinely blamed for suicide bombings and other attacks targeting civilians.
The rebels rarely launch attacks outside Sri Lanka, though their most prominent attack — the assassination of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi by a female suicide bomber — took place at an election rally in India in 1991.
As reader Eidee Man wrote in his comment elsewhere on thsi blog (in alerting us to this news): “Everything is officially going to hell.”
I came accross Pakistaniat.com and found this forum to be more representative of the average Pakistani, who must abhorr violence carried out in the name of Islam.
I must congratulate the forum members and its organizers. Today is a very tough day for average Pakistani who loves cricket and has nothing to do with terrorism.
But misdirected anger will not solve the problem of Pakistan. Pakistani leaders have led Pakistan to become the epicentre Jihadi extrimism and the anger of Pak citizens should be directed against its rulers who have made it what it is in last 30 years . Almso every act of international terrorism can be traced to its roots in Pakistan and its state through its ISI has been involved with many of these elements.
Regarding the comment on Gujrat riots , here are some facts from Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Gujarat_violence
About two hundred policemen lost their lives trying to control the violence in Gujarat [69]. ….. “254 Hindus, 790 Muslims killed in post-Godhra riots”. …
_________________________________
Many policemenn have been punished for dereliction of duty and hundreds of them gave there lives to control the violence that erupted immediately after 54 Hindu pilgrims were killed on a mob attack on a railway called the Godhra carnage.
Even today, the supreme court is aggresively persuing cases against many accused. Its a ghastly tragedy that it happened but the state can absolve itself by only vigorously persuing the guilty.
The attacks on the Sri Lankan cricket team took place in Lahore, but it should not be seen as an attack on Pakistan alone for two reasons.
First; for most South Asians, (at least tens of millions of them) cricket is not a game; it is a phenomena, whose popularity cuts across national and racial lines.
Passionate cricket lovers are found equally among the Punjabis on both sides of the Radcliff line; they are also found among the Sindhis and the Tamils, the Bengalis and the Pashuns; only the most mirthless, miserable, form of people can find any satisfaction in trying to disrupt this much loved sport.
Secondly, the attackers
@ Indian , Another Indian and Ilk….
We are in grief…..we are in mourning….this is a dark hour…
Yet all I see is a gleeful smuggness is as disappointing as it is cheap and tacky…that part about Indians feeling ‘naturally’ happy that this happened is particularly obscene….
If that is true…i wont be able to stomach another comment about how civilized you are….as civilized folks dont feel ‘naturally’ happy at acts like these…no matter who it happens to…
disappointing this…
stay classy ; Indian and another Indian…
PS: The eternally sane and civilized Bonobashi is thanked for his comments….
Yes, my prayers are with the Pakistanis who died while trying to save the team. They are the brave heroes who have paid ultimate price. May their families have the strength to live through this. But they died in the best cause for the country and they are the real Pakistanis that we are all proud of.
This is the worst day for Pakistan cricket, I pray we see the day soon when Sri Lanka will be playing in Qaddafi Stadium again and Pakistan is out of woods and out of the clutches of terrorists. I also pray that Sri Lankan team remembers Lahore as their winning ground of world cup instead remembering this nightmare.
Ahh… how much I wish that once we could see the Qaddafi Stadium full of people watching Australia against Sri Lanka …. ahhh the good old days….