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.”
@ Nostalgic and Pakistani for peace
Thanks for the kind remarks and the hopitality of your spirit.
It is people like you, among many others who make it impossible not to like Pakistan and ATP.
Regarding my compatriots, they say you can choose your friends but not your family; they come in all varieties; so is it with compatriots and countrymen.
When people read the ugly comments made by a handful of flamethrowers, one must remember that India is a very large country with all sorts of people.
It may come across as a ‘Hindu’ country to other foreigners but Pakistanis should know better than that.
India is a home to people of all faiths known to mankind, including 130 million equally ‘Indian’ muslims (almost another Pakistan.)
For every rabid communalist in India, there is a socialist or a secularist who refuses to hate based on faith.
Remember that most things that are sacred to a Pakistani, e.g the glories of Mughal India and Sher Shah Suri, the poetry of Ghalib and Iqbal, the sacrifices in 1857 and the subsequent freedom struggle, giants like Sir Syed Ahmed Khan have a place of pride in Indian hearts too.
Above all, the shared love of cricket binds our two nations in ties so strong that no two countries in the world are like us.
Thus any attack on cricketers is mourned equally by all of us South Asians.
Our condolences are from the heart and so are our good wishes.
Dear Gorki
Nice sentiments. Clearly many many Pakistanis, certainly on this forum share the hopes for peace and goodwill. But, maybe a similar analysis of the comments posted by Indian readers at this tragedy would best be done by an Indian rather than a Pakistani. Maybe, looking at what your compatriots are saying woudl start explaining what you are hearing from some Pakistanis.
By the way, by own strategy is to ignore the shouting matches from either side. Both countries have their share of war monger. Luckily they are not teh majority. They just shout the loudest
Gorki, for a non-Pakistani your posts show you are incredibly well-informed about our country!
Like you said, obnoxiousness, paranoia, arrogance and other such tendencies aren’t the exclusive domain of any one nationality… we have seen plenty of evidence of the above from both sides of the border, but one day, better sense will prevail…
I am delighted that you frequent this website, and I am sure I am not alone…
Peace Bro (or Sis…) … :)
@ 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=1236362220000 )
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
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.