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.”
Another Australian,
If you take the game away from the subcontinent, there will be no game of cricket left! Also, the levers of power today in cricket, whether you like it or not, are in the subcontinent.
The next World Cup will happen in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. And your players will come – and to venues like the Gaddafi Stadium. I am sure lessons have been learnt in this incident and teams will start coming back to Pakistan once the overall security situation in the country improves and specific corrective measures are taken for the security of players and officials.
We shall overcome the current crisis and emerge stronger, whether we have your support or not.
To any Sri Lankan readers
Dear Sri Lankan friend, as a Pakistani I apologize for this grave incident. I am so glad that none of teh players were serio0usly injured although I am sure that the trauma was huge. I salute you for coming to Pakistan when others ran away in fear and I salute you for the way your players and officials have handled this with such grace. I also salute teh brave Pakistani gurds and driver who gave their life while protecting you.
I also think that we should just suspend both India and Pakistan from international cricket for a while. They just bring politics into everything. No tour to India or Pakistan can be completed without some political controversy. The religious fanatics in both countries the hindu ones in India and the Muslim ones in Pakistan just dont want the game there, so lets just take the game away from both of them.
Bonobashi, My friend, My day, a very long day, is just beginning but very quickly.. I know the reasons already for which you visit this site and in no way implied that you or Gorki would not think of India first while discussing Pakistan. But thank you for the comment as it still was an education albeit of personal nature that friends generally are interested to know. As you would know, one of the underlying meanings of Pakistaniat on this blog is
@Adnan Ahmad
I read your post with mixed feelings. It was difficult to keep from jumping up and cheering at Bloody Civilian’s post (why does he keep on with that blasted nickname? It puts me completely off stride as I look nervously over my shoulder for my military relatives to swoop down on this bolshie correspondence!!). On the other hand, I began to wonder what made me identify so closely with this site. Was I losing my bearings?
Unlike Gorki, I am not a Gandhian; never was, and am beginning to suspect that the standard history we are taught may need a closer look. Nor am I a Nehruvian, although I am forced to admit that he was larger than life, and saved us to be a democracy. So why should I adhere to Pakistanis and to Pakistaniat?
After some considerable thought, I believe, no, I’m not losing my bearings. I am still the same person who knows the full version of our national anthem, not the single verse that is usually sung in public, and at 58, I still have tears in my eyes when I sing it. So do I feel a surge of emotion when I sing the alternative anthem, the one my not-Indian south Asian friends in the Gulf used to run away from, Sare Jahaan Se Achha, written by a well-known Hindustani. No, I’m not an Uncle Tom, and it isn’t surreal for me to be part of this site. Please indulge me for some little space to explain.
As far as supporting Pakistan and civil society in Pakistan is concerned, it rates with me exactly on par with supporting civil society in Bangalore (you might like to switch on NDTV and see what’s going on there at the moment), or in Calcutta, or civil society in Dhaka.
While those last are my blood kin, finding common purpose was never about discovering long-lost bonds of kinship, or literature or linguistic ties, or tenuous cultural links. As it happens, none of these exist in my case with the people of Pakistan. You may notice that I never (well, hardly ever) post on literary, linguistic or cultural issues; there isn’t much I can say.
It was about finding common cause against the problems that beset every third world country, not excluding ours, trying to find its place under the Sun. It was about addressing very similar problems and difficulties, with a comparison of the methods that we in either society used. I would be expressing these same, identical sentiments about the Egyptians to the Egyptians; in fact, they and the Nepalese are excellent examples. Unfortunately, there don’t seem to be too many blogs about Egypt in English, and I have a weakness for good English, hence my weakness for this blog.
Please do get this straight: I don’t need a hack journalist (although I agree with him and Arundhati Roy about Kashmir) to tell me whether or not to support like-minded people. The fact that modern Pakistan is modern Pakistan, and that modern Pakistanis have grown away from the common root that both our countries sprang from, is not an obstacle, nor a disqualification. On the contrary. It is all the fresher and more charming to discover this very civilised society and these individuals whose values match mine, and match what I have been brought up to adhere to. Enough to want to stand with them (one rather suspects that their reaction, if they were rude enough to display it, would be tinged with consternation: did you by any chance use the word ‘surreal’?).
A good friend, I read somewhere, is someone who knows you through and through and still likes you. If you want this friend to stand apart for a while, that isn’t a problem, not with real friends. If you allow him to pitch in with you, for you, if you can do with a helping hand at any time, this loyal Indian will be happy to do so, without compromising his loyalty.
Finally, what do I want from you? I want to see my Pakistani friends respect my dear, wonderful, struggling country for what it is, not for what emerges from drains and sewers and poisons civilised discourse. I shall love it right or wrong, make no mistake about that, but I will fight to my last breath to keep it right.