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.”
Bloody Civilian, I didn’t want to be part of this discourse for my own reasons but I must say that was one fine comment. Gorki and Bonobashi in a surreal way have become part of ATP or Pakistaniat, as it is defined on this blog. About Chief Justice Bhagwandas I just want to make a footnote that he is one of the shining stars of the lawyers movement. Upon return from India from his pilgrimage how easy it was for him to become an other sold out Justice Dogar and have the world presented to him in return. He did not budge and I salute him for that.
A post like this that involves India Pakistan can be a nightmare for the moderators who, as has often been mentioned here, have a thankless job to do.
PakWatcher/Vir Sanghvi, do keep watching Pakistan, if you must. Those in Pakistan who are fighting the battle don’t expect much from those amongst us or from across the border who completely lack in imagination and are intellectually lazy. Ignorance, however, might be less of a hindrence in this fight if, at least, the intentions are honourable. The nuances and complexities of a country, any country, are beyond those who cannot tell the difference between the sins of a dictator and those of a democratically elected government. Who cannot discriminate the people’s opinion as expressed through the ballot box, or an opinion poll, from the whim of a dictator. Those who cannot tell the difference between the state and the nation, and do not have the intellectual discipline to be able to objectively analyse either. They take the same superficial view of history - of lands, nations and religions. Imran Khan went to Oxford. Pol Pot went to La Sorbonne. A R Rehman went to Trinity College of Music. Had he known a fraction of what Sanghvi and Private Eye know about ‘Sharia Law’, he would never have made the ‘grave mistake’ he made at age 21. Why doesn’t Sanghvi put that question to A R Rehman? As a first step towards objectivity. That is if he has come up with an answer to Gorki’s question about his misuse/abuse of Gulzar first. Sanghvi was obviously busy in his deep analysis of Pakistan and the Pakistani society and that is why he completely missed the Lawyers’ and civil society’s continuing struggle and its success in removing the military dictator. You, I guess, were too busy watching Pakistan to realise that Justice Bhagwandas was the Chief Justice of Pakistan on ly recently. Chief Justice Durab Patel when Zia toppled the Govt. Despite all the problems that we face in Pakistan, of dictatorship and their unholly alliance with the obscurantist. Our hindu minority is 150 times smaller than your muslim minority. I guess to the intellectually lazy, riots, as opposed to terrorism, are mere Acts of God… even if they kill many times more than terrorist bombs and do so far less indiscrimnately. Dictators, religious obscurantists and political opportunists of all types (including extremists, dictators and wannabe despots of all ilk) thrive on those lacking in objectivity and intellectual rigour like Sanghvi to pervert history, pollute culture and undermine rule of law. It allows the state to ignore an illegal temple built in Ayodhya, and carrying on in defiance of the law of the land. It allows the discriminatory (as per the UN) religious conversion laws you have in several states. It makes it easier to carry on from 2002 with little more than a shrug of the shoulders and encourages Modi to aspire for PM-ship. It is this kind of ill-intended intellectual laziness that allows hate mongers to make war.
@ Pak Watcher and India Watcher;
Any time now I expect Prof. Najam to walk in and break up the food fight between you two ;-)..
Seriously for Pak Watcher, I have the following question and comments;
1. What is your point? This post is about a tragedy that took place in Lahore, and you post a long winded article from an Indian paper. Relevance?
2. The article you posted compares examples of secular Indians juxtaposed against examples of hypothetical ‘what ifs’ in a Pakistani setting. If being secular makes people kin to one another, then I guess using the examples quoted by Vir Sanghvi, Indians of today are long lost twins of the secular Swedes.
3. Conversely using another example, say a negative one; that of the former Akali head of the SGPC of Indian Punjab (who is accused of honor killing of her sixteen year old daughter for having an affair with a boy next door) makes the Indians now the kin of the Taliban.
I hope you see the absurdity of your (or shall we say Vir Sanghvi’s) arguments; that of kinship based strictly on the social/political climate in the nation state that one lived in. If that were the case, North and South Koreans are as different from each otherr as the Japanese are from the Zulu!
4. Finally no one on ATP mentioned ‘We are the same people Yaar’.
It is blamed by you (Vir Sanghvi) on ‘woolly headed Punjabi liberals’. I guess from his actions, Gulzar, appears to be a card carrying member of that silly liberal group.
So you use the example of the humaneness of Gulzar to trash exactly who?
Ah yes, those same ‘woolly headed liberals like him.’
I rest my case.
Next time, if you can not be original in your thoughts, try to lift up ideas from someone less self contradictory than Sanghvi.
@Pak Watcher
Did you ever encounter the phrase ‘non sequitur’ any time during your extended education (it obviously couldn’t have been any other kind)?
I find it bizarre that you should pick up a thread on “Sri Lankan Cricketers Threatened by Gunmen” to express your views, third hand, about Pakistan and Pakistanis.
And that too on a site called Pakistaniat. What is this, have you discovered irony?
If you really concur with Vir Sanghvi’s pedestrian rehash of MJ Akbar’s original, why bother to spend so much time here?
And the next time it is appropriate to display learning through quoting a journalist quoting another journalist, just post the URL. These work the same no matter how different the people using them.
Interesting observations from PakWatcher.
Although I guess propagandists never realize that their rants can sound a little selective to anyone who reads newspapers.
I guess Gujrat never happened in your India!
But you are right, we are NOT the same. Which is why we wanted and are very happy to have a Pakistan that is not India. With all the problems we have today, I would not stand for a minute the thought of having that one reality be different.
Things are not going well for Pakistan right now. And I do not expect anything except jeers and attempts to make them worse by Indians. But, boy, am I glad that Pakistan is not India.
Be happy in your India, dear friend and please please please stop interfering in our affairs. Let us be. If you don’t have it your heart to wish good things for your neighbors, please don’t make things worse. Just spare us your propaganda.
P.S… By the way, for someone who is so keen on India and so hateful of Pakistan, you seem to spend an awful lot of time thinking about Pakistan. Nice psychiatric case here!
Are India and Pakistan the same people ?
The obvious answer is Yes, until you look at the history of these countries in last 60 years. Yes we share more or less same genetics and have a shared history. There is so much common but the way these two people and countries have differed and diverged in last 60 years is equally remarkable.
Here Mr Vir Sangvi wrote a very interesting opinion in hindustantimes.
The same people ? Surely Not.
Few things annoy me as much as the claim often advanced by well-meaning but woolly- headed (and usually Punjabi) liberals to the effect that when it comes to India and Pakistan, “We’re all the same people, yaar.”
This may have been true once upon a time. Before 1947, Pakistan was part of undivided India and you could claim that Punjabis from West Punjab (what is now Pakistan) were as Indian as, say, Tamils from Madras.
But time has a way of moving on. And while the gap between our Punjabis (from east Punjab which is now the only Punjab left in India) and our Tamils may actually have narrowed, thanks to improved communications, shared popular culture and greater physical mobility, the gap between Indians and Pakistanis has now widened to the extent that we are no longer the same people in any significant sense.
This was brought home to me most clearly by two major events over the last few weeks.
The first of these was the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team on the streets of Lahore. In their defence, Pakistanis said that they were powerless to act against the terrorists because religious fanaticism was growing. Each day more misguided youngsters joined jihadi outfits and the law and order situation worsened.
Further, they added, things had got so bad that in the tribal areas the government of Pakistan had agreed to suspend the rule of law under pressure from the Taliban and had conceded that sharia law would reign instead. Interestingly, while most civilised liberals should have been appalled by this surrender to the forces of extremism, many Pakistanis defended this concession.
Imran Khan (Keble College, Oxford, 1973-76) even declared that sharia law would be better because justice would be dispensed more swiftly! (I know this is politically incorrect but the Loin of the Punjab’s defence of sharia law reminded me of the famous Private Eye cover when his marriage to Jemima Goldsmith was announced. The Eye carried a picture of Khan speaking to Jemima’s father. “Can I have your daughter’s hand?” Imran was supposedly asking James Goldsmith. “Why? Has she been caught shoplifting?” Goldsmith replied. So much for sharia law.)
The second contrasting event was one that took place in Los Angeles but which was perhaps celebrated more in India than in any other country in the world. Three Indians won Oscars: A.R. Rahman, Resul Pookutty and Gulzar.
Their victory set off a frenzy of rejoicing. We were proud of our countrymen. We were pleased that India’s entertainment industry and its veterans had been recognised at an international platform. And all three men became even bigger heroes than they already were.
But here’s the thing: Not one of them is a Hindu.
Can you imagine such a thing happening in Pakistan? Can you even conceive of a situation where the whole country would celebrate the victory of three members of two religious minorities? For that matter, can you even imagine a situation where people from religious minorities would have got to the top of their fields and were, therefore, in the running for international awards?
On the one hand, you have Pakistan imposing sharia law, doing deals with the Taliban, teaching hatred in madrasas, declaring jihad on the world and trying to kill innocent Sri Lankan cricketers. On the other, you have the triumph of Indian secularism.
The same people?
Surely not.
We are defined by our nationality. They choose to define themselves by their religion.
But it gets even more complicated. As you probably know, Rahman was born Dilip Kumar. He converted to Islam when he was 21. His religious preferences made no difference to his prospects. Even now, his music cuts across all religious boundaries. He’s as much at home with Sufi music as he is with bhajans. Nor does he have any problem with saying ‘Vande Mataram’.
Now, think of a similar situation in Pakistan. Can you conceive of a Pakistani composer who converted to Hinduism at the age of 21 and still went on to become a national hero? Under sharia law, they’d probably have to execute him.
Resul Pookutty’s is an even more interesting case. Until you realise that Malayalis tend to put an ‘e’ where the rest of us would put an ‘a,’ (Ravi becomes Revi and sometimes the Gulf becomes the Gelf), you cannot work out that his name derives from Rasool, a fairly obviously Islamic name.
But here’s the point: even when you point out to people that Pookutty is in fact a Muslim, they don’t really care. It makes no difference to them. He’s an authentic Indian hero, his religion is irrelevant.
Can you imagine Pakistan being indifferent to a man’s religion? Can you believe that Pakistanis would not know that one of their Oscar winners came from a religious minority? And would any Pakistani have dared bridge the religious divide in the manner Resul did by referring to the primeval power of Om in his acceptance speech?
The same people?
Surely not.
Most interesting of all is the case of Gulzar who many Indians believe is a Muslim. He is not. He is a Sikh. And his real name is Sampooran Singh Kalra.
So why does he have a Muslim name?
It’s a good story and he told it on my TV show some years ago. He was born in West Pakistan and came over the border during the bloody days of Partition. He had seen so much hatred and religious violence on both sides, he said, that he was determined never to lose himself to that kind of blind religious prejudice and fanaticism.
Rather than blame Muslims for the violence inflicted on his community — after all, Hindus and Sikhs behaved with equal ferocity — he adopted a Muslim pen name to remind himself that his identity was beyond religion. He still writes in Urdu and considers it irrelevant whether a person is a Sikh, a Muslim or a Hindu.
Let’s forget about political correctness and come clean: can you see such a thing happening in Pakistan? Can you actually conceive of a famous Pakistani Muslim who adopts a Hindu or Sikh name out of choice to demonstrate the irrelevance of religion?
My point, exactly.
What all those misguided liberals who keep blathering on about us being the same people forget is that in the 60-odd years since Independence, our two nations have traversed very different paths.
Pakistan was founded on the basis of Islam. It still defines itself in terms of Islam. And over the next decade as it destroys itself, it will be because of Islamic extremism.
India was founded on the basis that religion had no role in determining citizenship or nationhood. An Indian can belong to any religion in the world and face no discrimination in his rights as a citizen.
It is nobody’s case that India is a perfect society or that Muslims face no discrimination. But only a fool would deny that in the last six decades, we have travelled a long way towards religious equality. In the early days of independent India, a Yusuf Khan had to call himself Dilip Kumar for fear of attracting religious prejudice.
In today’s India, a Dilip Kumar can change his name to A.R. Rahman and nobody really gives a damn either way.
So think back to the events of the last few weeks. To the murderous attack on innocent Sri Lankan cricketers by jihadi fanatics in a society that is being buried by Islamic extremism. And to the triumphs of Indian secularism.
Same people?
Don’t make me laugh.
@ Gorki
Oh, you’re right as usual, but sometimes the sublime statesmanship of a Nehru or a Jinnah is lost on warts; warts don’t get it. Sometimes, the situation need a different approach from your humanism or Watan Aziz’s patrician disdain. Sometimes it needs a low-bred pleb like me to call things as they are, to clean up warts and pustules. And I’m a Sudra, a cleaner-up of messes; that’s what I was born to do, dear Doc.
I’m a guest here, like you; they made us at home. It’s nice to be able to repay the courtesy in some humble way.
I didn’t realise warts squashed with such a lovely squishy sound.
@ Bonobashi, Watan Aziz and Bloody Civilian,
I read your responses and see that you three have noticed that petty little attention seeker, Arjun-2.
Personally I believe that such pitiful creatures are best ignored and do not deserve the dignity of a response.
Fortunately most people on the ATP can see through his miserable ruse but perhaps he got a little under the skin of Watan Aziz.
I do not blame Watan Aziz for this, and as he pointed out, internet has provided all of us with an open forum which can unfortunately show ‘warts and all’.
I am sorry that this wart called Arjun-2 who represents the worst of India is in such an open display here.
Just to be fair, I would like to present another view about Pakistan in the words of another Indian, whose eloquence I can not match and so will reproduce a part of his speech in his own words, expressing his sentiments about Pakistan and its people.
“We think also of our brothers and sisters who have been cut off from us by political boundaries and who unhappily cannot share at present in the freedom that has come. They are of us and will remain of us whatever may happen, and we shall be sharers in their good [or] ill fortune alike”
Later on in the same speech he goes on to mention the following words:
“The ambition of the greatest man of our generation has been to wipe every tear from every eye. That may be beyond us but as long as there are tears and suffering, so long our work will not be over.
And so we have to labor and to work and work hard to give reality to our dreams.
Those dreams are for India, but they are also for the world, for all the nations and peoples are too closely knit together today for anyone of them to imagine that it can live apart.
Peace has been said to be indivisible; so is freedom, so is prosperity now, and so also is disaster in this one world that can no longer be split into isolated fragments”.
Jawaharlal Nehru.
August the 15th, 1947