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.”
@ All, especially Riaz, Bangash Khan, Azmatullah…..
Like several other loyal readers, I too have developed a kinship to ATP. I visit it almost daily and eagerly read the posts. While I am aware that I am not a Pakistani, in some ways I have started believing that it belongs to me too. I suspect that I am not alone and several other Indian visitors have similar feelings about ATP.
However several recent comments have made me sit up. Indians have been accused of being hateful, condescending and patronizing by some commentators. This phenomenon is not limited to ATP. The blogosphere is a buzz with many such sites with similar comments. In fact an enterprising author has neatly classified the Indian visitors to Pakistani sites into 4 neat categories:
(http://fiverupees.blogspot.com/2009/03/responding -to-four-different-types-of.html?showComment=12363 62220000 )
I want to mention that such generalization may be too harsh.
While many comments by Indians are insensitive and rude, (demonstrating that bad behavior is not a monopoly of any one nation, like humanity it too is universal) I believe most Indians posting here genuinely share my personal fondness for the people of Pakistan in general and ATP in particular.
Barring a few exceptions, most appear to be pained at the recent unfortunate events in Pakistan and any interest shown reflects a genuinely concern rather than an attempt at gloating or patronizing.
If all this attention is making the Pakistani readers of ATP uncomfortable, then all I can say is this; it is probably not the intention, it certainly was not the intention of this visitor.
I respect the fact that it is a Pakistani site (ATP duh), and the Pakistanis have a right to run it any way they want. That they allow some of us well intentioned outsiders to post on this site is highly appreciated.
As to any lingering doubt that some people may have as to why all of a sudden this interest by us in Pakistan, I can not speak for all other Indians but as for myself, my intentions are honorable and I post below a note I left on another similar Pakistani site. I hope this will help clear up some of the mistrust.
“Hey Ahsan, what in the world would you do without us nerdy Kumbayas to ridicule and make fun of. ;-D.
Seriously the blog is very witty but once the laughter has died down, I want to point out that at least some of the people leaving these positive warm and fuzzy comments have no illusions that this world is not and will not become a Disneyland overnight; but what are the alternatives for us well meaning people?
I can speak for myself; I am a newbie, even to the world of blogging itself. I have a busy life, work 60 hours a week, never gave Pakistan much thought and only started reading Pakistani blogs after 26/11 which set me thinking; how could so much hatred be packed into 10 young minds that they would be willing to train hard for months, then sail into a foreign land and die while killing hundreds of innocents that they never knew?
The only answer I came up was that these ten people felt that their victims also must hate them back with an equal passion.
Thus I leave these ‘cute warm and fuzzy’ comments to dispel the feeling that most Indians are obsessed with ill will and hatred towards Pakistan.
Whether it helps change anyone’s mind or not I don’t know, but between the two extremes of either
a) Organizing a political movement on the scale of a Dandi March or
b) Doing nothing;
I chose to do a third more doable thing; that is to share a little bit of my views with whoever will listen on the other side. I live in US like you do but have a small farm barely 60 miles from the Radcliff line and hope my little voice will join that of millions of others so that my homeland will not become the kind of a battleground that Afghanistan is today. If you have any other suggestions for this busy professional, I am listening”.
Finally, I can’t pretend that all these noble feelings of empathy are an Indian invention; Pakistanis share these feelings and in fact express them far more elegantly and eloquently.
See below for a link to another post on ATP itself to read a poem by Faraz that was posted by Baber that says it all with a poignancy and eloquence that no Indian can match. http://pakistaniat.com/2007/08/15/pakistan-wishes- independence-day-greetings-india/comment-page-3/#c omments
Again, I thank ATP and its Pakistani brothers and sisters readers for tolerating us and sharing this beautiful site with us visitors.
As an Indian settled in the US, my heart goes out to the persons who died in this incident, and heartfelt thanks to God (Allah, Guru Govind Singh, or of whatever name) that the Sri Lanka team was spared with some injuries. We as S Asians should come together to denounce voilence wherever it occurs.
I hope and pray that the BCCI and the ICC have the sense to try and help Pakistani Cricket survive by offering to host games in India and Sri Lanka with substantial revenue going to support the game in Pakistan.
The bickering and finger pointing in the comments between Indians and Paksitanis is rather disgusting. Specially for an incidence that is actually not between these two countries.
My hope is that this just reflects the pent up frustrations of people in both countries who are fed p of teh failures and violence around them. My fear is that it is more than that and is a result of years after years of governments and media in both countries teaching people to hate the others.
Irony is that the violent extremists, of whatever religion and flavor, who are the common enemy of both are the ones who benefit from this.
@Hassan
A relief to find a sensible voice in this cacophony. I stopped posting to this very dear site of mine because of the increasing stridency of the language used. If this is the standard here, I can well believe that language in other fora might be considered a sufficient casus belli.
For both good people from Pakistan and from India: there are such deep and dreadful problems going on at this moment all over South Asia that none of us should have the temerity to sit in judgement over the others. From bloody mutiny and massacre in Dhaka to assault on our young ones in Bengaluru to murder in Mumbai to finally this crowning outrage, this foul act against hospitality and against those who should have been our honoured guests, we have done more than enough for the rest of the world to shrink from us.
Please, please, stop this mutual abuse and let us each set our own houses in order, not in isolation from our friends across the border, but with sympathy and ready cooperation, not in a spirit of scoring debating points, nor in a spirit of patronising condescension. We aren’t any of us in such a position that we can afford to be so high and mighty with each other.
The more I read many of the posts here, the more I can understand how, ultimately, any human is capable of committing the most heinous act, if the circumstances are ‘right’. Many posting here ought to read Manto’s “Mootri”. It shows how despicable things were coming up to ‘47. The posts here show how we have regressed and degnerated even from the “Mootri”, in to the ….
Ok, this is most probably definatley an inside job. Take a look at this account of events here:
http://www.infowars.com/pakistan-cricket-attack-%e 2%80%9cinside-job%e2%80%9d-theory-goes-viral/
I’m sure intelligence agencies were involved with this!
“You are also right in feeling slighted and frustrated by his arguments. maybe he made those arguments because he felt equally slighted and frustrated by the arguments being made by Indians here that seem to (even if they are not meant to) be made merely as cheap digs on a traditional ‘enemy’. The digs hurt even more in times when there is so much pain to begin with.”
I would disagree. If being slighted, or even being percieved to be slighted, is the be all and end all of life then a country will go nowhere. Hurt, pain is the process through which real reform is conducted.
“I hope that the hurt you feel at these comments will help yo also realize the hurt that is sometimes caused by some of our friends from across the border.”
Riz’s comments although a bit farcical and his motives suspect do have a grain of truth, the response to Mumbai was incompetant. The commandos sent to respond to the terrorists had to be shipped in from New Dehli, since Mumbai had no commando units to battle the terrorists. Furthermore these commandos were stuck in traffic while the terrorists were mowing people down.
I would comment on the Pakistani reaction to the current situation, but it seems some members on this board would likely explode at that.
Sridhar
You are probably right that Riaz is over-reacting and being argumentative. But I think he is doing it tongue-in-cheek to demonstrate that any of the arguments that Indians on this forum are making can easily be turned around.
You are also right in feeling slighted and frustrated by his arguments. maybe he made those arguments because he felt equally slighted and frustrated by the arguments being made by Indians here that seem to (even if they are not meant to) be made merely as cheap digs on a traditional ‘enemy’. The digs hurt even more in times when there is so much pain to begin with.
I hope that the hurt you feel at these comments will help yo also realize the hurt that is sometimes caused by some of our friends from across the border.
there are far more Pakistanis today saying that the security was not done properly and there was a lapse, even our officials are saying that. But when Paksitanis say this they are clearly saying this by way of emphasizing that we need to do far better. Unfortunately when many Indians in teh media and blogs say this they soudn as if they are gooating. Maybe they are not. maybe they are well-meaning, but because there is no trust on either side, that is what it sounds like.
When there is no trust - and there clearly is none here - even well-meaning comments start sounding like cheap digs even if they were not meant to be. I am sure many Pakistani comments now and after Mumbai were well-meaning but did not seem so to our Indian friends. The same is the case now.
I would like to believe that one day we will all act in a mature enough way to see that the common enemy is extremism of any kind and violence. unfortunately we are not there yet.
Anyhow, just my two cents… maybe, Riaz is saying something very different from what you read it as!