More Mayhem in Lahore; Terrorists Attack Hospital and Kill 12; Then Escape

Posted on May 31, 2010
Filed Under >Adil Najam, Law & Justice, Religion, Society
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Adil Najam

The details of exactly what happened here are still sketchy. Except that this terrorist attack on the Emergency Ward of Lahore’s Jinnah Hospital was clearly related to the brutal attack of Ahmadis in Lahore earlier this week.

The basic facts of what we do know about this brutal terrorist attack are horrendous enough: four terrorists came in disguised as policemen and took control of the Emergency section of Jinnah Hospital where a number of people who had been injured in the earlier attack on Ahmadis in Lahore were admitted, as was one of the suspects of that attack (Muaz); the ensuing gun battle with the police was not pretty and left twelve people dead, including four policemen; eventually the terrorists were able to flee in safety.

Sketchy as itself is, the best account one can find right now of what happened is in The Express Tribune:

In an audacious attack, four terrorists entered the emergency ward at Jinnah hospital near midnight and began firing indiscriminately, killing 12 people, including four policemen. The terrorists then took patients, attendants and hospital staff hostage. The terrorists later fled.

Eyewitnesses described the terrorist as fair-complexioned and between the ages of 20 and 22. They are said to have entered the hospital premises camouflaged as police and eyewitnesses said they were riding a vehicle with an official number plate. Some police officials say the objective of the attack seems to have been either killing or securing the release of one of the terrorists responsible for Friday’s attack on the Ahmadi ibadatgah in Model Town, Muaz, who had been captured the same day and was under treatment at Jinnah hospital.

Responding to the hospital’s SOS, the police moved in soon after to cordon off the area and secure the hospital. For at least 30 minutes, the two sides traded fire. One of the terrorists is also said to have been shot in the leg.

One of the terrorists is said to have made his way to the rooftop of the hospital and from this vantage point, continued providing covering fire and picking out the policemen assembled in the hospital premises. Shortly after, the police brought in Armoured Personnel Carriers and Elite Forces reinforcements and managed to cordon off the area.

In order to prevent the terrorists from identifying the location of Muaz in the ICU,  police say, they disconnected power supply to the hospital. Panicked by the firing and the dark, patients, their attendants and the hospital staff made for the exits, running for their lives.

In the ensuing melee, police sources say, the four terrorists made good their escape from the rear entrance of the hospital. As the police gave chase, there was a brief encounter between the two sides in the adjoining area of Hanjarwal, before the terrorists fled from there as well.

Initially, eyewitnesses said the terrorists used a police vehicle for their getaway but later, the police contradicted this claim. It is now being thought that since the car the attackers came in had a government number plate, that’s why the eyewitnesses were deceived. From the rounds left behind, the police are surmising that the four were armed with AK 47s as well as other guns.

The IG Punjab and other senior police officials reached the area to supervise the operation and soon after, managed to secure the building. Meanwhile, police sources said, Muaz was shifted to an undisclosed location.

However, independent analysts are dismissing the police’s theory of the terrorists wanting to secure Muaz’s release. Muaz, it is said, is a significant member of the Punjabi Tehreek-e-Taliban, originally from Muzzaffargarh, and the authorities expect him to render a great deal of useful information about terrorist networks in southern Punjab. However, since he was on life support in the ICU, analysts say, it is unlikely that his comrades could have transported him and must have meant to kill him.

Till the filing of this report, there were conflicting reports about the death toll. While the Jinnah hospital administration said 12 had been killed, DCO Lahore Sajjad Bhutta said between six and eight persons had been killed.

Jinnah hospital medical superintendent Dr Javed Akram requisitioned medical staff from other hospitals of the city to treat the injured.

Several of those injured in Friday’s attacks which killed more than 80 Ahmadis were under treatment in Jinnah Hospital.

Meanwhile, the IG Punjab says that Lahore has been put on high alert and all the entry and exit points to the city have been sealed.

Right now there are more questions than there are answers. And even more mayhem, panic and fear. Exactly what the terrorists want. More than that, just as one thought that the tide of public opinion was turning starkly against the Taliban and their violent tactics, it seems the terrorists may have hit a winning formula: Once they start targeting Ahmadis, too many ‘good’ Pakistanis seem willing to either remain just silent, or turn the conversations into a theological debate about who is and is not a ‘real’ Muslim, instead of focusing on the brutality and inhumanity of these terrorists killing Pakistanis. The rest of the world has, of course, never shown interest in Pakistanis being targeted by these terrorists as long as it kept them off their backs; now, it seems that ‘good’ Pakistanis will also look the the other way as long as it is Ahmadis who are targeted!

You know what this makes these ‘good’ Pakistanis who choose to remain either silent or look the other way or try to change the topic by camouflaging it in vague religosity? Bad Pakistanis.

52 responses to “More Mayhem in Lahore; Terrorists Attack Hospital and Kill 12; Then Escape”

  1. Zafar says:

    This was bound to happen with all the TV channels, blogs and so called reporters providing details by the second and informing everyone that the injured terrorist is under treatment in Jinnah Hospital.

    I wonder why this did not happen the very next day or the very same day. We all love the freedom of TV channels because it has brought us a source where we can vent out our anger against anything and everything wrong around us. These channels at least provide us the information and we might be able to choose one day appropriate leader for ourselves due to that information or the leaders might correct themselves a long shot but I believe it is possible, but this freedom is taken too far, TV channels and all types of media must be made responsible. These guys should know what information is to be aired and stop just before the point when it becomes dangerous to air any such information.

    The discussion about Ahmadis or Qadianis is a different subject and must be covered under a different thread as suggested by Watan Aziz. If at all you want to discuss that then start a different thread on it.

  2. UPDATE. More detailed story from DAWN:

    Terrorists targeted Lahore’s Jinnah Hospital on Monday midnight to “free or kill” their fellow, who was injured in Friday’s attack on Ahmadis’ worship place in Model Town, leaving at least five persons dead and six injured.

    Some 10 Ahmadis and terrorist Moaz alias Amir Moavia were under treatment in the hospital when the terror attack took place at around 11.45pm.

    Acting Lahore police chief SSP Chaudhry Shafiq Ahmed told Dawn that four terrorists wearing police uniform stormed the hospital’s intensive care unit (ICU) on the first floor and opened indiscriminate fire on the policemen deployed outside the entrance to guard the injured terrorist.

    “The terrorists then entered the ICU block where they had an exchange of fire with policemen present there. Failing to clear the passage to reach Moaz, they managed to flee,” the SSP said.

    He said an ASI, two constables and a man and a woman were among the dead while four others injured. He said that one of the terrorists was injured in the gunbattle. “The terrorists came to either kill or free Moaz but they failed,” he said.

    Soon after the incident, Jinnah Hospital’s chief executive Prof Javed Akram had claimed that “12 people were killed in the attack”. However, his claim could not be verified from the city morgue as only five dead bodies were brought there.

    Punjab IGP Tariq Saleem said: “It was the security arrangements that prevented the terrorists from succeeding in their plan. They have fled towards Hingerwal and we are after them,” he said and sounded optimistic that police would soon hunt down the terrorists.

    It was business as usual in the major health facility of the city when doctors, paramedics, patients and their attendants ran for their lives after the terrorists forced their entry into it from the rooftop.

    “I was in the emergency when I heard gunshots. We locked ourselves in the ward. The firing continued for about 10 minutes,” Jinnah Hospital Medical Superintendent Dr Muhammad Hasan said.

    Dr Moazam who was present in the cardiology ward told Dawn that everyone was running for his or her life. “My patients suffered a shock and I have been trying to make them stable,” he said.

    Police and other law-enforcement personnel rushed to the spot after having been alerted by the hospital doctors. They cordoned off the area and took positions. “By the time the police entered the hospital building equipped with automatic weapons the terrorists had fled,” a police official told this reporter.

    “However, the police thoroughly searched the building and the adjacent Allama Iqbal Medical College area for over an hour,” he said. The hospital lights were switched off during the search operation.

    The injured terrorist Moaz is being shifted to unknown place.

    The attack on Jinnah Hospital put more pressure on the government of Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif to crack down on militants in Punjab.

    Only a day earlier federal Minister for Interior Rehman Malik had spoken in Lahore about the presence of militants in the province, indicating that a large number of them may be concentrated in ‘southern Punjab’. Mr Malik had held that these militants were born out of an alliance of convenience between the Taliban and Al Qaeda and the sectarian groups that have been active not only in southern parts of Punjab but in fact all over the province.

    This promptly brought the federal minister and his PPP government at the centre into confrontation with the PML-N set-up in Punjab.

    Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah was quick to reject Rehman Malik’s assertions. He went further by declaring that the mention of Punjab or its southern districts as a possible area for a clean-up operation was part of an “international conspiracy”.

    The statements made in the wake of the Jinnah Hospital incident provided more proof of just how far apart the governments in Islamabad and Lahore stand on an issue that may have the gravest of consequences for the whole country.

    Responding to remarks that the attack on the hospital may have been aimed at either eliminating or freeing an assailant of the Friday’s strikes against Ahmadis, Rehman Malik said it was not in his “notice” that the suspect was being treated at Jinnah.

    This obviously suggested that he would have asked the authorities to keep the whereabouts of the suspect secret.

    Ignorant as the federal minister did sound, his latest remarks were tantamount to an expression of distrust in the ability and the will of the Punjab government to tackle the fast growing monster of militancy. It was a sign that if no one else, the centre and Punjab were moving towards a showdown on what have come to be known as Punjabi Taliban.

  3. Ghiasuddin says:

    Adil, thank you for your consistently courageous and strong stand. I can only imagine the risk that these writings put you in. But I read these words and they give me hope that all cannot be lost in our beloved nation if people are still willing to speak out the truth. Bravo, Sir.

  4. Watan Aziz says:

    And I do not think there is a “winning formula” against Pakistanis.

    The only formula those who hate Pakistan have is to create mayhem and disunity amongst Pakistanis. So that everyone will look at each other with suspicion. Is he with me or against me?

    We need to discuss or even remain silent, if warranted, but we should not “them” win.

    No Pakistani needs to be reminded of Jinnah’s, winning formula: Unity, Faith, Discipline.

  5. Asim Kaleem says:

    It’s really time now to think how these people become terrorist by taking law in their hands and killing innocent people. I think its their background starting from their childhood where they are always feeling deprived and all the time beaten up.

    These people lack love and respect in their lives and that’s why ultimately, they go for such brutal acts. The government should think about working in the coming generations by constant monitoring the schooling and bringing up of the children in the country ……….. This is the only way we can get rid of this menace ……….. otherwise there is no end to it ……… as terrorism has its roots in deprivation, lack of love and respect ……..

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