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 have no words to respond to the venom in the words of ‘shattered sun’. How low and ghatiya does one have to be to not even respect the sacrifice of someone who has lost their life and paid the ultimate price. The inhumanity of this comment is no different than the inhumanity of the killers who do terrorism. Indeed those blinded by hate are the most blind of all. And when societies and their media teach people only to hate this is what you get.
If I did not know better and did not know so many other decent Indians who are decent human being first, I would read such comments and boil in hate (maybe that is what these posters really want!). But I will not. May you boil in your own hate bt may you eventually learn that all human life is precious, even if it is of those that you have been taught to think of as your enemy.
The pettiness of some comments (shattered sun) is amazing. Six people give their lives and you can’t even respect that. I guess for some hard-hearted beasts any dead Pakistani is a good thing, no matter what. For as long as such hate and venom exists all the talk of peace and goodwill is useful.
Not a big surprise where such a commenter might be from.
I read such comments and thank God that we created a separate country. How can one live with such hate.
“I am so proud of the bravery of the Pakistanis who lost their lives but succeeded in saving the lives of the Sri Lankan cricketers who were our guests.”
Apparently the only hero here was the bus driver, whose quick thinking saved the Sri Lankan team. An english umpire stated that security personnel fled during the attack leaving him helpless.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7924210.stm
@fatima
“actually the thing is that when after mumbai attcks india started blaming us we were enraged and and now what ever we r doing is the reaction of what india did to us .
every one here is telling pakistan to stop blaming india but i m hundred percent sure if again anything like that will happen in india they will do the same what they did before”
That fact you or the Indians are enraged is irrelevant. Condemning terrorism is not about posturing. If these attacks were indeed committed at behest of India then India must be condemned, whether they blamed you in the past is utterly irrelevant.
The problem is that all I see here is the run of the mill conspiracy theories.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article5848097.ece
Just the same if India had credible evidence of Pakistani involvement, they have every right to assign such blame.
I do not want my team to ever go to India or to Pakistan. You guys have too many problems you need to clean up first. And both India and Pakistan need to take responsibility for what happens in your country.
The crybaby attitude of Indians after Mumbai and now Pakistan after this is just too much. Both countries messed up on your security. Accept it and do something about it. For us these issues are so common, every time a cricket team goes to India or Pakistan there are so many of these problems and each time you guys try to find someone else to blame.
Grow up. And until you do, say both India and Pakistan should be off the cricket calendar. Come to Dubai or some place safer if you want to remain in international cricket!