Terror hits lahore.

Singh

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How the attack on cricketers happened


1. Masked gunmen ambush the players' convoy, firing at least one rocket grenade, and killing five police officers in an escort vehicle and one other on the ground. Several players are injured.
2. The driver speeds the team bus to the Gaddafi Stadium where the players are airlifted by helicopter to safety.
3. Gunmen escape in the direction of Liberty Market. Ammunition and weapons, including a rocket launcher, found.


Eyewitnesses to Tuesday's attack on Sri Lanka's cricketers described scenes of shock and horror as gunmen opened fire in the heart of the Pakistani city of Lahore.

"As the Sri Lankan team was approaching the stadium for the test match this morning, about a half a kilometre away from the stadium, two cars entered the roundabout... and fired a grenade," said Graham Usher, a British journalist, who was approaching the area just as the attack took place.

"As they did this, three other gunmen ran into the roundabout, where the bus was, opened fire on a police vehicle - where a police officer was killed - and then opened fire on the bus, spraying the bus we understand with machine gun fire," he told the BBC's Today programme.

"The gunmen targeted the wheels of the bus first and then the bus," Sri Lankan cricketer Mahela Jayawardene told Cricinfo website. "We all dived to the floor to take cover."

The driver of the bus carrying the Sri Lankan team, Khalil Ahmed, said: "As we approached the city's Liberty Roundabout, I slowed down. Just then what seemed to be a rocket was fired at my coach, but it missed and I think flew over the top of the vehicle.

"Almost immediately afterwards a person ran in front of the bus and threw a grenade in our direction. But it rolled underneath the coach and did not seem to cause that much damage.

Soon after that the vehicles were shot at, before Mr Ahmed drove off at top speed.

He said the attackers were all aged between 20 and 30 and many had beards.

'Bullet holes'

Another bus carrying the umpires for the game also came under fire, said a Pakistani umpire whose bus was stopped just behind the Sri Lankan players.

"The firing started at about 0840 (0340 GMT) and it continued for 15 minutes. Our driver was hit, and he was injured," Nadeem Ghauri was quoted by the Associated Press news agency as saying.

Lahore resident Ahmad Hassan described the chaos on the streets as he was driving to work near the cricket stadium.

"People got straight out of their cars, they were panicking and running in the road," he told the BBC. "All I could think of was that I might be killed by a stray bullet... It was the worst day of my life."

Former England cricketer Dominic Cork - who was providing commentary for the series - said he heard the loud gunfire shortly after he arrived at Gaddafi stadium and rushed into the commentary box to see what was happening.

"The Sri Lankan team bus had arrived with bullet holes all over. There was a lot of, obviously, screaming and shouting from the medical staff of the Sri Lankan team. We could see that at least six players at that time I knew had got wounds."

"They all hit the ground, then there was shrapnel flying all over," Mr Cork said.

He said one of the players remembered thinking, "This is it. I'm dead."

Journalist Graham Usher said police were investigating the scene.

"There are two white cars that were apparently used in the ambush that are being investigated by police officers, and there is the police van that bore the brunt of the gunfire," he said.

"One of the police officers, we understand, was killed in this van. It is surrounded by broken glass and there is blood spilled and congealed on the seats and there is a real sense of shock and bewilderment as hundreds of local journalists and police are milling around."

Punjab Governor Salman Taseer arrived at the scene about an hour after the attack.

"These [attackers] were fully trained people, the way they were running and the kind of weapons they had... they are the same [type of] people who launched attacks in Mumbai. They were no ordinary terrorists."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7920303.stm
 

Singh

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Broad angry at security failures


I had an inkling before the Test match leg of the tour that something might happen
Chris Broad

Six of them [policemen] died, nine of them are seriously injured in hospital and he [Broad] says there were no policeman
Pakistan Cricket Board chairman Ijaz Butt


Broad 'angry' over lack of security

Chris Broad has angrily criticised security in Pakistan after being caught up in Tuesday's Lahore terror attack.

The former England batsman was match referee for the Pakistan-Sri Lanka third Test and was in a van with other officials when they came under fire.

Six policeman and a driver were killed and seven Sri Lanka players were hurt.

"I am extremely angry that we were promised high-level security and in our hour of need that security vanished," said the ICC official.

He said the officials were left like "sitting ducks" after the security forces ran for cover when the attack happened close to the Gaddafi Stadium.

The driver of Broad's vehicle was killed in the attack and local umpire Ahshan Raza was seriously injured after being shot.

With everyone on the van floor to try to avoid bullets, Broad lay on top of his colleague to protect him.

Broad, speaking in Manchester after his flight home, said: "I'm not a hero. Ahsan Raza took a bullet to the stomach or chest - somewhere in the spleen and lung region.

"I was lying behind him on the floor of the van and there were bullets flying all around us.

"I only noticed he was injured when I saw a large pool of blood had spilled on to the floor and out of the partially opened van door.

"He's just an umpire who loves the game."

Broad, 51, believed it would be very difficult for international cricket to be played in Pakistan in "the foreseeable future" and he called the attacks "the death knell of cricket in Pakistan".

"I think this has shocked the world of cricket," he said. "I hope this has made people sit up and think. In certain circumstances, things take a long time to change in cricket, but in this case things will have to happen fairly quickly."

He also revealed he had raised security concerns ahead of the series but had been reassured by the Pakistan Cricket Board.

"I had an inkling before the Test match leg of the tour that something might happen," Broad said.

"I raised my concerns with the ICC before the tour started and they passed on those concerns to the Pakistan Cricket Board and they assured me through email that all security would be taken care of, presidential-style security. And clearly that didn't happen.

"When we were in the van we weren't aware of what was going on outside. But afterwards when you watch the TV pictures you can clearly see the white van we were in, in the middle of a roundabout and not a sign of a policeman anywhere."

But Pakistan Cricket Board chairman Ijaz Butt denied Broad's claims that the protection given to the players and officials was inadequate and said the casualty toll among the security forces proved that.

"Six of them died, nine of them are seriously injured in hospital and he says there were no policeman," Butt told BBC Radio 5 Live.

"Where does he come up with such comments? I'm seriously going to report this back to the ICC. This is not the way. There were other people also, all foreigners, not one single one of them was injured."

Security on international tours is the responsibility of the two individual boards but Broad suggested the ICC, the game's governing body, should take a more direct role.

"There are countries who have their own security experts," he said.

"I know England have Reg Dickason from Australia and other countries use him and his group to look at security.

"Reg Dickason didn't think Pakistan was safe for anyone to go to. He was amazed the Sri Lanka tour went ahead.

"But he's not advising Sri Lanka - he's advising England. England clearly wouldn't have gone into the same situation.

"Maybe there's something for the ICC to look at - that they themselves take the safety concerns into consideration, make decisions themselves about their match officials, the PCT.

"Because, of course, no official game can go ahead without the playing control team. So if the ICC say don't go then it doesn't happen."

Broad and the other uninjured officials were flown out of Pakistan three hours after the incident and headed to Dubai before returning home to the UK.

He said he had not had any sleep because of the "images going through my mind".

Broad had managed to contact his son Stuart, who is in the England squad touring the West Indies, and his daughter, who is with the England Women's squad in Australia.

But he will speak to them again "just to reassure them that all things have gone well".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/cricket/7923654.stm
 

Rage

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Security cover was relatively relaxed: Dilshan

4 Mar 2009, 1254 hrs IST, IANS


COLOMBO: Sri Lankan batsman Tillakaratne Dilshan, who narrowly escaped the Lahore terror attack, said on Wednesday that the security cover for the two-match Test series was relatively relaxed when compared to the ODIs.

Dilshan paid a tribute to the Pakistani bus driver for virtually saving the lives of all the cricketers bravely, as terrorists attacked the team bus with rocket launchers, grenades and gunfire in the heart of Lahore while the players were on their way to the Gaddafi Stadium for the third day's play in the second Test. Six policemen were killed. Six Sri Lankan cricketers and their assistant coach were injured.

In pics: SL team reach home

"I think that security arrangement for the Test tour was relatively relaxed when compared to the three-match ODI series. There was a massive security cover for the ODIs, but I think they would have never expected such attacks on cricketers," Dilshan told reporters as he hugged his little-son seconds after disembarking from a chartered Sri Lankan Airlines jet.

Emotionally moved players and their relatives hugged one another as the 25-member tour party returned to the country in the early hours of Wednesday after abandoning the tour.

Dilshan, who scored a blistering century just the day before, said that the bus they were travelling in was just 500-600 metres short of the stadium when the gunmen unleashed their well-planned attack.

"The driver in a state of shock stopped the bus for a couple of minutes as the bullets started hitting the windscreen few inches above his head. I shouted 'drive fast, drive fast' as the gunmen started spraying bullets targeting the bus continuously," he recalled.

"If not for the heroic deeds of the driver, things would have been totally different," Dilshan said.

Reflecting the same sentiments, Sri Lanka's outgoing cricket captain Mahela Jayawardene said that the team was "really fortunate to have returned home alive without any serious injuries" given the magnitude of danger that the team had gone through during the targeted attack.

"There were no life threatening injuries to any of our players, but they have been psychologically hit. Hopefully, reuniting with their family members would heal them faster," he said.

Paying tribute to the Pakistani police officials "for sacrificing their lives only to save the lives of our cricketers", Jayawardene said that the bus "driver was the real hero here".

"For about 20-25 minutes, I thought I would never be able to return to Sri Lanka alive. We were helpless and were just hiding behind the seats even as the bullets were being fired and the players getting injured," said Jayawardene, who had earlier expressed his desire to finish his career as skipper on a winning note.

Having been brought up in a background of explosions and terrorist attacks in the island nation for the past three decades, he said it was due to "natural instincts" that the players knew that they had to take cover behind the seats and lie on the floor.

"I am a Buddhist by religion and I think we have done some merit in our previous births to have escaped with minor injuries. We want some time now to be with our families to get rid of this nightmare," he said, adding that it was too early to comment on future tours to Pakistan.

All the Sri Lankan newspapers were filled with the news and photographs of the Lahore mayhem. The state-run Daily News had its front page in black with big red letters saying "Lahore terror attacks SL cricket".

"The attack cast another dark cloud over Pakistan cricket which has been reeling from a string of cancelled tours and tournaments," it said, highlighting that the fears of attacks by militants linked to Al Qaeda have caused many teams either to postpone or cancel their tours to Pakistan in recent years.


http://cricket.timesofindia.indiati...ively-relaxed-Dilshan/articleshow/4222549.cms
 

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Suspects arrested in Sri Lanka team attack



Security officials display ammunition recovered near and at the site of the shooting attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team, in Lahore. -Reuters

LAHORE: Police detained several suspects connected to the attack on Sri Lanka's cricket team in Pakistan, but said Wednesday they had made no progress in tracking down the group of gunmen that wounded seven players and killed six police guarding them.

Reports said the SIM used in the Lahore attack was registered in the name of a man from Rahim Yar Khan. The man in question, Shahzad Babar, has been arrested and is being shifted to an unknown location in Lahore.

Total nine suspects were arrested in connection with the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team, television reports said.

Four suspects were rounded up from Quetta, three were arrested from Lahore, whereas two were seized from Karachi, reports said.

Tuesday's attack in Lahore came at a time of mounting political turmoil in the country and added to fears it was losing the battle against militants blamed for a series of high-profile attacks.


Senior police official Haji Habibur Rehman said police raided locations in Lahore and surrounding districts and arrested 'some suspects.' He gave no details of their alleged roles, or the precise number detained, but said some were picked up at a Lahore hostel, where bloodstained clothes were also found.


'We are after them, and we hope that God willing we will soon get a result,' he told a private television channel.


He confirmed the arrests to The Associated Press, adding 'so far we have not made any headway toward the perpetrators.'


Police have a poor record of investigating terrorist attacks and often round up people in the immediate aftermath of assaults who are never charged.


Militants are widely suspected to be behind the attack, but authorities have not explicitly stated this.


In the commando-style assault, up to 14 heavily armed and well-trained gunmen sprayed the Sri Lankan bus with bullets and rocket and grenade fire as it traveled to a match against Pakistan. The bus sped through the ambush and reached the safety of the stadium.


'Our guys were getting hurt and screaming, but we couldn't help each other,' Sri Lanka captain Mahela Jayawardene said when the team arrived home in Colombo early Wednesday. 'None of us thought that we would come alive out of the situation.'


Veteran Sri Lanka spinner Muttiah Muralitharan spoke of the chaos on the bus during the attack.


'All the while bullets were being sprayed at our bus, people around me were shouting,' he said. 'I am glad to be back.'


But Jayawardene added that growing up in Sri Lanka, which has seen scores of terrorist attacks related to the country's civil war, meant the players had a 'natural instinct' that made them immediately hit the floor at the first sound of gunfire.


'We are used to hearing, seeing these things. Firing, bombings. So we ducked under our seats when the firing began,' Jayawardene told reporters.


The attack ended Pakistan's hopes of hosting international cricket teams — or any high profile sports events — for months, if not years. Even before Tuesday, most squads chose not to tour the cricket-obsessed country for security reasons.


The assault bore many similarities to last year's three-day hostage drama in the Indian financial capital of Mumbai.


Working in pairs, the attackers carried walkie-talkies and backpacks stuffed with water, dried fruit and other high-energy food — a sign they anticipated a protracted siege and may have been planning to take the players hostage, an official said.


None of the gunmen was killed, and all apparently escaped into this teeming city after a 15-minute gunbattle with the convoy's security detail.


The Punjab government took out advertisements in newspapers Wednesday offering a $125,000 reward.


The ad showed two alleged attackers, one dressed in brown and the other blue, and both carrying backpacks and guns. The image was taken from TV footage of the event.



Besides the six police officers, a driver of a vehicle in the convoy was also killed. Seven Sri Lankan players, a Pakistani umpire and a coach from Britain were wounded, none with life-threatening injuries.

http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect...suspects+arrested+in+sri+lanka+team+attack-rs
 

Singh

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Tragedy in Lahore

Even our most esteemed guests are no longer safe in this country. Assured of security reserved for VVIPs, Sri Lanka chose to play in Pakistan when the cricketing world at large saw us as a pariah state. We had stood by Sri Lanka in the past and they repaid us in the same coin. They chose to play in a country whose very mention invokes images of the most gruesome violence imaginable in the minds of most foreigners.

Many in the Sri Lankan team are probably regretting that decision after the deadly attack in Lahore yesterday that left a number of policemen dead and injured at least four Sri Lankan cricketers. Two of them suffered bullet wounds but thankfully they are said to be out of danger. This paper has consistently maintained that foreign cricket teams should visit Pakistan. Tuesday’s tragic events have perhaps confirmed that the sides that refused to tour were possibly guilty only of prescience tinged with paranoia.

By no stretch of the imagination can a Pakistani militant or terrorist organisation bear a grudge against Sri Lanka, let alone its cricketers. The context, then, suggests that the attack was carried out by internal or external elements who wish to either destabilise the Pakistan government or to further isolate it internationally. Whose agenda does this attack fit, is the question that needs to be asked, probed and answered.

The dozen or so people who attacked the Sri Lankan team bus with hand grenades, at least one RPG and endless rounds of gunfire were no ordinary terrorists. The footage shows all too clearly that this was an attack carried out by individuals who have received highly sophisticated combat training. Their approach was not dissimilar to that adopted by the Mumbai gunmen. Perhaps the same organisation is to blame for both tragedies.

With all due respect to the policemen who died in the half-hour gun battle in which they tried valiantly and successfully to save the Sri Lankans, a security lapse did occur, officialdom’s denials notwithstanding. This aspect of the story must be investigated fully. Tuesday’s assault also highlights the folly of negotiating with those bent on destroying our way of life. The peace deal, or capitulation, in Swat has been described by officialdom as a regional solution to a regional problem.

This does not wash, it cannot fly. Militancy and terrorism are national problems that are not confined to a specific region. The obscurantists must be tackled head-on if we are to entertain any hope of redemption.
If the state resorts to negotiating with militants from a position of weakness, what we will get is disaster, across the board. The politicians need to wake up, bury the hatchet in the national good and rout the real enemy.


http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/Dawn Content Library/dawn/news/pakistan/tragedy+in+lahore
 

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Suspects at Liberty

Right at the beginning the television footage chillingly reminded the Lahoris of Mumbai, November 26, 2008. By the evening, a large number of people were convinced of the idea —among them respectable analysts, journalists who have been covering crime for long, policemen who wouldn’t want to be named.

This however didn’t stop other theories to haunt the latest destination on the global terror tour. There was a pileup of conspiracy explanations at the Liberty Roundabout on Tuesday.

The common strain running through all the theories juggled with was revenge: what goes around, comes around at the life’s roundabout.

The Tamil rebels, militants from Lashkar-e-Taiba and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Taleban or an obscure group from within Pakistan, al Qaeda, RAW, an Indian rightwing outfit, even some Bangladeshi militant organisation, of course someone looking to divert attention from the lawyers’ long march… all stereotypes converged on the unfortunate square that of all the names in the world, had to wear ‘liberty’ as its title, in a virtual South Asian jamboree on terror.

Never have so many suspects gathered at one place in the past. The list of suspects demanded a South Asian jamboree of the security agencies representing all the states that are bound by the common objective to eliminate terror. The irony of it all was deepened when the worried Lahoris realised that the only people who could best exploit the liberty allowed to them were the ‘twelve’ terrorists still roaming loose in the city.

And if the suspects’ list was in any way found lacking, kidnappers also made an appearance on a number of investigation charts later in the day. It was pointed out that given their method and the arsenal they had on them like grenades etc, the ’12 terrorists’ that struck on 8:50 on Tuesday may have had plans to hijack the bus with Sri Lankan cricketers on board.

It seemed that, aided as they were by the inefficient administrative handling of the incident, the attackers were very ‘keen’ on fleeing after whatever they did or did not achieve – keen on escaping unlike the usual jehadis who are so fond of taking a short cut to heavens through the suicide route.

This, to many minds, absolved the jehadis of the act, and eyes were cast towards the eastern neighbour who, a senior analyst argued, had always found it easy to strike Lahore due to the proximity. But why would those looking to avenge Mumbai embroil another neighbour, Sri Lanka, in it?

Nothing conclusive could be arrived at as the answer to the question followed a similar line of thought that has in recent times seen the blame of the twin towers placed at the door of the Jews and which describes Mumabi as an inside job, thereby precluding benefits that can only come with introspection.

According to the said scheme, Pakistan’s (and Islam’s) enemies are ready to wound themselves and risk national calamity so long as they are able to sully our name. One wonders, when our ‘enemies’ could have adopted so many other, less complicated and less self-endangering measures to trouble us.

Has it been established beyond a shadow of doubt that the terrorists wanted to target the Sri Lankan team? Could they have mistaken the bus to be carrying the Pakistani cricketers instead? The question begs answers since it was reported that the Pakistanis were scheduled to leave the hotel for Gaddafi Stadium before the visitors.

At a press conference in the afternoon, skipper Younis Khan confirmed that he had himself delayed his side’s departure from the hotel by five minutes allowing the Lankans a lead that could have proven fatal. Again, amid official and unofficial voices that were dead sure that the attack was a result of immaculate planning, it was possible that a terror accomplice did keep his colleagues at Liberty posted about the movement of the bus.

An accomplice may have seen the Sri Lankans getting on the bus and may have passed the information to the lead players in the conspiracy. That should have entailed a quick search of numbers who might have called from the vicinity of the hotel at around 8:30, when the team had left for Gaddafi Stadium.

But if the officials were mindful of this aspect of the investigation, they were keeping their findings to themselves. Indeed, as people of Lahore shuddered at the prospect of coming face to face with any of the twelve terrorists, all they heard by way of an assurance was that their city had been cordoned off and the police were looking for suspects.

Not any more welcome was the presence on stage of the squabbling politicians who couldn’t quite stop themselves from striking back at the opposition. Governor Salmaan Taseer drew flak from all corners for it was his government that had failed to avoid the tragic incident that led to the death of many brave policemen.

He was quick to liken it to Mumbai, leading to calls for a Mumbai-like cleaning of the official stables in the wake of the Lahore attack. His opponent, Shahbaz Sharif, chose the day to retort back to the allegations of power abuse levelled by the governor on Monday.

Mr Sharif, who hates wastefulness, could have used his time much better by doing something which showed that, in or out of the government, he was standing with the people of his city in their hour of trial.

http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/Dawn Content Library/dawn/news/pakistan/suspects-at-liberty--bi
 

thakur_ritesh

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Some troubling news...documents released indicating RAW's involvement!!

wow the pakistan intelligence had a specific report of raw planning an attack on a moving convoy of the sri lankans and still the sri lankans were not given a bullet proof bus, all the police men around ran away the moment the shots were fired as per the match referee, they changed the route on a call by an anonymous caller whom they trusted like none other just like zardari took the call of an anonymous caller from delhi. tell me mate how much time does it take to make any such report prior to an attack and then isi getting it executed through its stooges and then blame it on any one, this my friend is no evidence, this so called “intelligence input” is as laughable as the story of indian origin weaponry as if any such thing cant be bought from the black market. now if they were so damn sure that any such incident was to be orchestrated at the behest of raw then why not use the choppers for the transit or is it that the PM and president of pakistan do not use any such service or is it that even those would have been taken down in the war zone of pakistan, you would be smart enough to understand the emphasis on the war zone in pakistan.


tell you what mate, had this been in circulation, or for that matter had this been raw, the first people to pin point this to you would have been the cia, they know a thing or two of what happens in indian sub continent, now dont start saying it was raw and cia. this is diversionary tactic which pakistan has tried once too many times since the 26/11 happened for the heat has become unbearable now, and believe me no one is going to buy this rather loose talk by the pakistanis for every one knows what all conspired behind the scene, no wonder the first reactions from the west have been all pointing fingers at the internal mess that pakistan finds itself in. rather than addressing the root cause problem, pakistan is as always going round the bush but no way is that going to help you all or else its lahore today, tomorrow it will be karachi, and dont be surprised if this happens in rawalpindi, but then i guess all that will again be a making of raw with prior intelligence inputs and indian origin weaponry recovered from the crime scene, isnt it.


pakistan is a country in a state of denial and country which uses terrorism as a state policy, is that refutable, i guess not for that is the image they have developed for themselves, and even till date the world sees the isi sleeping with the enemy (the jihadis) and i am sure that must not be a coincidence of raw pulling the strings behind the scene, or is it that all the ills in pakistan have its origins to india and then partly to the west. lets get real mate, you have a monster in you back yard who if unchecked will be ruling you people in times to come and believe me life then will be hell but i guess all is a creation of raw.


just a question for i have never followed ansar abbasi, does he have a special dislike for the PPP, and if yes, then the answer of his out burst and him being picked as the person to put it across to the media has its own charm, i can see this out burst as an effort to get even-stevens with zaradi, and his political out fit by certain vested interests.
 

nitesh

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Seems like it was all staged to show they are victims of terrorism, a pathetic attempt

http://www.lankanewspapers.com/news/2009/3/40432_space.html

Someone knew: Broad points finger over terror attack

CC match referee Chris Broad has suggested that someone had advance knowledge of the attack on Sri Lanka`s cricket team in Lahore and held back the Pakistan players` bus to keep them out of danger.

The Briton says he has no evidence of a conspiracy but pointed out that the bus carrying the Pakistan team in Lahore departed on its journey to the Gaddafi Stadium five minutes after the Sri Lanka bus.

About a dozen gunmen attacked the Sri Lanka convoy, killing six policemen and a driver. Seven Sri Lanka players were injured.

Broad said that, although the teams travelled at different times in a previous Test match, the buses had travelled together on the first two days of the second Test in Lahore.

The attack took place ahead of play on the third day.

`On the first two days both buses left at the same time with escorts,` Broad told reporters following his return to Britain.

`On this particular day, the Pakistan bus left five minutes after the Sri Lankan bus. Why?


`I thought maybe they were having five or 10 minutes more in the hotel and would turn up later, but after this happened you start to think, `Did someone know something and they held the Pakistan bus back?` `

Pakistan captain Younus Khan has said his team was lucky to escape the attack.

`Thank God we decided to leave our hotel five minutes after the Sri Lankans,` he said.`We are a young team and God forbid if both buses had been moving together. It could have been catastrophic.`

Coach Intikhab Alam said: `We usually leave the hotel early on the first day because of the toss and on the second and third day we leave the hotel a bit late, so captain Younus Khan decided to leave at 8.35am but the Sri Lankan team left five minutes before us.`

The Pakistan Cricket Board had reacted angrily to Broad`s earlier suggestion that security forces had left players and officials like `sitting ducks`.

But Broad reiterated his view that the security was too lax.

`At every junction from the hotel through to where we were attacked and all the way to the ground, there were police in light blue uniforms with handguns controlling traffic,` Broad said. `How did the terrorists come to the roundabout and how did they start firing and these guys not do anything about it?

`There were plenty of police there and yet these terrorists came in, did what they had to do and then went again. It is beyond me.`


Sri Lanka spinner Muttiah Muralitharan backed up Broad.

`Somehow in this incident there were no police with guns on the bus,` Muralitharan told Australia`s Radio 5AA. `If someone was there with a gun, we would have had a chance of defending ourselves.

`Normally all the buses go and we have four or five escorts. We left at 8.30am, and Younus Khan at 8.35am. We divided into two. Maybe they knew the information for the right time.`

Broad, a former England cricketer who was officiating between Sri Lanka and Pakistan, escaped injury in Tuesday`s attack but said police totally deserted the buses.

`There was not a sign of a policeman anywhere,` Broad said. `They had clearly left the scene and left us to be sitting ducks.`


Broad was next to fourth official Ahsan Raza when he was hit by a bullet and critically injured.

PCB chief Ijaz Butt contested Broad`s interpretation of events.

`How can Chris Broad say this when six policemen were killed?` Butt told The Associated Press in Pakistan, adding that he would comment further after speaking to the Englishman on Thursday.

Broad insisted that whatever security arrangements were made were insufficient, pointing out that the players and officials took the same route to the stadium every day. He suggested the route should have been varied as a precaution to prevent an ambush.

`I had an inkling before the Test match leg of this tour that something was going to happen,` Broad said. `I raised my concerns with the ICC before the tour started and they passed on those concerns to the PCB and they assured me through email that all security would be taken care of, presidential-style security.

`And clearly that didn`t happen.`


Broad cited television pictures that he said showed the targeted vehicles had been left unguarded. The driver of the bus Broad was on was killed in the attack.

`You can quite clearly see the van that we were in next to the ambulance in the middle of this roundabout with terrorists shooting past our van and into our van and not a sign of a policeman anywhere,` Broad said. `They had clearly gone left the scene.`

The International Cricket Council said on Tuesday that it had not been asked to provide a security appraisal for Sri Lanka`s tour to Pakistan because it had been arranged bilaterally by the competing teams.

`I am extremely angry with the Pakistan security,` Broad said. `We are all extremely lucky to be here today. There are questions to be asked of the Pakistan security. Having promised us security, it was not there when we needed it.`

AP

Source(s)
age.com.au
 

nitesh

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One more pointing towards the same:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/04/opinion/04sethi.html?_r=2

Op-Ed Contributor
Lahore Murder Mystery
By ALI SETHI
Published: March 3, 2009
Lahore, Pakistan

YESTERDAY afternoon, Ali Raza went to the hospital. A 25-year-old constable in the Punjab police department, Ali Raza was accompanying an old man who needed an M.R.I. scan. In the reception area, he noticed that the waiting patients had abandoned their chairs and were standing around the television. They had been watching the same images all day: a dozen unidentified gunmen, two wearing backpacks, firing at a van near the Liberty Market roundabout. The intended victims, the TV stations had reported, were members of the Sri Lankan national cricket team, in town here to play Pakistan. The dead: eight Pakistanis, including six of Ali Raza’s fellow police officers.

“Everyone at the hospital was saying the same thing,” Ali Raza told me later that night, as we stood in line at a brightly lighted stall selling paan — a mild stimulant made with betel nuts — near the Main Market roundabout, just a short walk away from the site of the attack. “They were saying that this was done to show the Indians that we in Pakistan are also the victims of terrorism.”

“You think our own government did it?” I asked.

“No one else could get away with this kind of thing,” he insisted.


He described the attackers’ feat: they appeared out of nowhere at one of the city’s busiest intersections and fired for more than 20 minutes at the van carrying the players to Qaddafi Stadium, and then fled in rickshaws.


“I know the kind of precautions we have to take when we are in a V.I.P. motorcade,” the young officer told me. “And this was a ‘V.V.I.P.’ motorcade. Every house in that neighborhood was surrounded by the police. My friend was there and he told me the attackers didn’t receive a single wound.”

A young man in a T-shirt who was standing next to us at the paan stall asked, “Was your friend hurt?”

Ali Raza said, “He is fine, by the grace of God.”

This kind of talk was not limited to paan stalls. There had been all sorts of opinions expressed on the privately owned TV channels, which now bring live video and commentary from the sites of terrorist attacks to much of Pakistan’s urban population. The governor of Punjab Province, who last week ousted the elected provincial government on the orders of President Asif Ali Zardari, was on camera immediately after the attack, and compared it to the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, last November.

Others were more specific: a member of the opposition Pakistan Muslim League said he “had no doubt” that this was the work of the Indian intelligence agencies. A former head of Pakistan’s security service, the I.S.I., agreed with him. An analyst from Islamabad, discussing the attack later in the day on a popular chat show, said that “from every angle” it was evident that India, by attacking a foreign cricket team in Pakistan, had gained. “Who benefits?” she said. “You have to ask who benefits.”

Another guest on the show, an elderly sage in a dark blue suit and a bright blue tie, wearing spectacles and speaking with slow, slotting movements of his hand, said that the blaming of one country by another was always counterproductive because, in the end, it took the focus away from domestic troubles. He gave the example of Benazir Bhutto’s assassination, which had immediately led to conspiracy theories but was still awaiting a proper inquiry. “When there is confusion,” he said, “the only people who benefit are the miscreants.”

A former intelligence official I know had a different theory. He said he had seen a report some weeks ago warning of exactly this kind of attack in Lahore, possibly against a cricket team. He said it came from the rumor mill that “leads back to Waziristan” in Pakistan’s tribal areas. “So this is a security failure,” he said. “But it’s not an intelligence failure.”

Later at night it was reported that the government had found bags that held guns, hand grenades and almonds. This was followed by the televised funeral of one of the slain policemen. His female relatives were sitting around his corpse, wailing and beating their chests. His father, surrounded by cameras, was looking at the floor and saying that he was proud of his son for serving his country.

Again at the paan stall, now surrounded by listeners, I asked Ali Raza if he thought there was a chance that the attack was the work of terrorists or criminals. “There is a chance,” he admitted. “But it could be the agencies. It could be the government. It could be India also.”

I asked, “What about other people?”

“Which other people?”

I said, “The people who kidnap journalists and bomb the homes of politicians and slit the throats of government spies.”

He was thinking about it.

The man operating the paan stall was lining moistened betel leaves with spices and condiments. He had on a tattered apron, which is worn by men like him to keep the notoriously messy paan juice from staining their clothes. He smiled at us and said, “Whoever has done this has a lot of intelligence.” He paused. As he did, I looked over the crowd, and thought that for all our various theories, it was a point we could agree on. And then he finished, “For poor people, everything is the same.”

Ali Sethi is the author of the forthcoming novel “The Wish Maker.”
 

foofighter

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Australian cricket umpires: 'Pakistan abandoned us in our hour of need'


An emotional Simon Taufel talks to reporters at Sydney airport
Anne Barrowclough in Sydney

A nation divided | Conspiracy theory | Ben Macintyre | Bronwen Maddox | Mike Atherton | Security fears | Sarah Hoggard

Australian cricket umpires caught in the Lahore terror attack today joined British referee Chris Broad in attacking Pakistan security lapses, and said they were abandoned by police when shooting began.

"We were caught in a war zone," umpire Simon Taufel said as he returned home. "We were left on our own in our time of need."

Mr Taufel and his fellow Australian umpire Steve Davis were with Mr Broad on a bus carrying officials following the Sri Lankan team coach when at least 12 gunmen staged an ambush at a roundabout near Gaddafi stadium on Tuesday. The attack left eight people dead including their driver and six police officers, and wounded eight Sri Lankan players.
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Their criticism came as Pakistani police issued sketches on Thursday of four of the gunmen, taken from eye witness accounts from a car owner and a rickshaw driver, according to city police inspector Asif Rashid.

"They appear to be 25 to 30 years old," he said.

Yesterday Mr Broad said the attack could have been part of a wider conspiracy, and accused Pakistani security forces of leaving the vehicles like "sitting ducks."

"We were promised high level security and in our hour of need, that security vanished," he told reporters on his return to Britain.

Today, Mr Taufel and Mr Davis backed his claims of conspiracy and asked why they were left helpless and alone.

"There's a bit of anger there that we were let down - we had all sorts of assurances before and I'm sure the (Sri Lankan) team feels that way too," Mr Davis said as he arrived at Melbourne airport.

"Despite all that, this was still able to happen and we were put in a very vulnerable position and felt very helpless."


As he greeted his wife Helen and sons Jack and Harry at Sydney airport, a furious Mr Taufel said he felt abandoned, and expected to be shot at any minute as bullets peppered the officials' van.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article5849321.ece

Completely bizarre. The picture we are beginning to gather is that despite knowing the attack would have, they were given hoplessle little security, their route was changed, and to add to the player's misery they were actually "abandoned". [simon taufel and other crew in other van]
 

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http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/KC05Df01.html
KARACHI - Tuesday's attack in the Pakistani city of Lahore on a convoy carrying Sri Lankan cricketers was carried out by disgruntled Punjabi militants seeking to extract concessions from the government, Asia Times Online has learned.

And the 12 highly trained gunmen who fled the scene after killing six police officers and wounding six of the cricketers had planned to take the sportsmen hostage, not kill them, high-level sources maintain.

The militants, working directly under the command of a joint Punjabi and Kashmiri leadership based in the North Waziristan tribal area and allied with al-Qaeda, planned the Lahore operation.

A spokesperson at the Sri Lankan Embassy at Islamabad also said on Tuesday that he did not believe the Sri Lankan players were meant to be killed as all fire was aimed at the police protecting the players.
All indications are that the militants are "good sons of the soil" trained by Pakistan's premier secret service, the Inter-Services Intelligence's India cell to fight against the Indian security forces in Indian-administered Kashmir.
These "Kashmir" militants are mostly non-Pashtun (unlike the Taliban), with the majority being ethnic Punjabis.
The government accepted all of the demands, but it refused to release those prisoners who were not from Swat. At the top of this list was Maulana Abdul Aziz, a radical cleric from the Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) in Islamabad who was arrested in July 2007 while fleeing from the mosque after security forces stormed it. The government also refused to release several other militants, including a very important person, who were recently arrested in Islamabad.

The Punjabi militants were clearly upset at having their demands rejected, while the Pashtuns got what they wanted. The attack in Lahore was meant to redress the "injustice".
please read it in full
 

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Pakistani official admits security lapse

A Pakistani official admitted that "very vivid" security lapses allowed gunmen to ambush Sri Lanka's cricket team and escape, local media reported on Thursday, as investigators chased down leads in hopes of a breakthrough in the case.

The acknowledgment followed allegations by a referee caught up in Tuesday's attack that police abandoned him like a "sitting duck." Video from the area showed the gunmen sauntering down a deserted side street, apparently leaving with no fear of pursuit.

But other Pakistani officials have defended the security measures, noting six policemen guarding the convoy were killed when it was attacked by up to 14 heavily armed men near a stadium in the heart of the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore.

Seven players, an umpire and an assistant coach were wounded. The attack occurred despite government pledges to give the Sri Lankan players and match officials the same level of protection afforded a head of state.

Lahore commissioner Khusro Pervez admitted in an interview with local media that the gunmen should have been battled by "back-up police support which didn't arrive."

"All convoys are provided outer cordons, but in this case the outer cordon did not respond or it was not enough. The vehicles used for escorting the Sri Lankan convoy were not adequate," the Dawn newspaper quoted him as saying to a television news show owned by the same media company.

"There are certain security lapses which are very vivid and very clear," he said.

The lapse was all the more shocking because Pakistan knew any incident would end, perhaps for years, its hopes of regularly hosting international sporting events. Even before Tuesday's ambush, most teams chose not to visit this cricket-obsessed country because of rising violence by Islamic extremists.

"It is a source of embarrassment at the international level," said Ahsan Iqbal, an opposition lawmaker. "This government should be ashamed and make those responsible for criminal negligence in their duties accountable."

Police have given conflicting accounts of the investigation. One top police official said several suspects had been taken into custody in connection with the attack. Hours later, however, another denied anyone had been detained or even questioned. Officials reached on Thursday said they were pursuing clues in several cities. Islamic militants were widely suspected in the attack, but authorities did not explicitly say that.

Pakistan has a web of extremist networks, some with links to al-Qaida and the Taliban, that have attacked foreign civilians in a bid to destabilize the government and punish it for supporting the US-led invasion of Afghanistan.

Referee Chris Broad was traveling in a van in the same convoy as the Sri Lankan team bus when the attackers opened fire with automatic weapons, grenades and at least one rocket launcher, killing his driver and critically wounding a fellow official. "There was not a sign of a policeman anywhere," Broad said Wednesday after flying back to Britain. "They had clearly left the scene and left us to be sitting ducks."

He did not say how he managed to escape.

Other witnesses described police trading fire with the gunmen for about 15 minutes, but at least one of the Sri Lankan players said the attackers appeared to fire at will at the bus. "They were not under pressure ... nobody was firing at them," team captain Mahela Jayawardene said after returning to Sri Lanka.

Players said their bus stopped for around 90 seconds while under attack, before the driver stepped on the gas and drove them to the safety of the stadium. Broad and the players said Pakistani officials had promised to give them "presidential style" security as part of efforts to convince them to make the trip. "I am extremely angry we were promised high-level security and in our hour of need that security vanished and we were left just open to anything," Broad said.

Several Pakistani officials denied that, as did the country's top cricket official.

"How can Chris Broad say this when six policemen were killed?" Pakistan Cricket Board chief Ijaz Butt told The Associated Press. He declined further comment, saying he wanted to speak with Broad first.

The convoy transporting the Sri Lankan team and cricket officials was surrounded by police vehicles at the front, rear and side, and took the same route each day of the five-day test match against Pakistan's national team, authorities said. It was not clear how many police officers were in the convoy.

The surveillance video, broadcast on Pakistani television, showed several attackers apparently escaping down a side street on motorcycles while brandishing weapons. Three were shown walking along the middle of the street, apparently in no fear that they were being chased by police.None of the gunmen was killed, and all apparently escaped. The assault bore similarities to November's three-day terrorist rampage in the Indian financial capital of Mumbai. The Pakistani group Lashkar-e-Taiba has been blamed for that attack, in which 10 gunmen targeted hotels, a Jewish center and other sites, killing 164 people.

Pakistani authorities have since cracked down on the group, which is based in eastern Pakistan
 

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Lahore attack: Conspiracy theories galore

Pakistan and Sri Lanka's foreign minister said on Wednesday that Tuesday's attack on Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore was an attempt to destabilise their bilateral relations and that they will ensure that they get to the bottom of it.

But Lahore is buzzing with conspiracy theories of foreign hand and India. There have been some arrests but investigators are still hunting for clues.

"We have prepared sketches of the suspects and the government of Punjab has announced an award of Rs 1 crore on them," Lahore police chief Habibur Rehman said.

With the latest strike damaging its world image even further, the Pakistan government is on damage control mode.

"The terrorist attack against the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore shows once again the evil we are confronting with. We have not and will not negotiate with extremist Taliban and terrorists. This is an existential battle. If we lose, so will the world. Failure is not an option," Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari said in an interview.

But in Islamabad, conspiracy theories have started circulating.

"Pakistan is under continuous aggression and the foreigners have been targeted with the view to bring a bad name to the country. I do not overrule a foreign hand in it," Pakistan Interior Minister Rehman Malik said.

A whisper campaign is accusing India's Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) of planning these attacks in retaliation for Mumbai. India responded by asking Pakistan to look within -- something even Pakistan's political Opposition is demanding of the PPP government.

"What happened yesterday created a stir in the world. Sri Lanka was attacked and they had to leave the country and go. But that hasn't solved anything that is happening in Swat or the issues with the Taliban or the economic status," PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif said.

As the shock over the Tuesday's attacks settles into anger, the Lahore attacks have served to expose serious faultiness within Pakistan itself.
http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20090085714
 

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India rejects RAW involvement

LAHORE: India has rejected Pakistani allegations that its secret agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), was involved in Tuesday’s terror attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore, a private TV channel reported on Wednesday. In an interview with an Indian TV channel, Indian Home Minister P Chidambaram said it was in Pakistan’s own interest to impede the Taliban’s influence. He denied that India was fanning terrorism in Pakistan. Chidambaram said, “Cricket is safe in India, but security forces are required to make it more secure.” He said Pakistan was paying the price for not acting upon Indian advice in this connection. daily times monitor
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2009\03\05\story_5-3-2009_pg1_4
:sniper:
 

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Where's the evidence of Indian hand in Lahore attack, asks Pakistani media

The "flurry of charges" linking India to the attack on the Sri Lankan cricketers in Lahore "make no sense at all", an editorial in a leading English daily said on Thursday, while another cautioned that such finger pointing would only widen the India, Pakistan rift.

"The flurry of charges from the media and members of the government that our neighbours to the east may have had a hand make no sense at all - given that the gunmen have not been apprehended and no other evidence points in this particular direction," The News said in an editorial headlined "No closer to the truth".

On its part, Daily Times referred to the "planting" of a police report that apparently warned that India's spy agency RAW was planning to target the Sri Lankan cricketers and said it was meant to "widen the rift between India and Pakistan and bring relief to the terrorist elements under pressure from the Pakistan army in the tribal areas".

The editorial was headlined "Reaching out for denial again".

Pointing to the need "to put passion aside and accept the reality", The News said: "There is now no doubt at all that Pakistan is unsafe; no sporting team should be asked to visit it, unless we wish for blood on our hands."

"The priority must be to assess how order can be restored in our state and the violent forces that operate within it eradicated.

"Turning our attention to this would be a far more useful exercise than pointing fingers towards neighbours or pretending that the Pakistan is not a terrorist haven. The events of March 3 prove that it is and will remain so till we act decisively to restore the rule of law within it," the editorial maintained.

The News also noted that the government had "done little" to "clear the mist of confusion or calm the deep unease" the audacious attack had created.

"Indeed, the interior adviser's media talk in Islamabad seemed to add to the suspicions that no one at all with an iota of good sense is in charge of the country," the editorial added.

The reference was to Interior Minister Rehman Malik's statement hours after the Lahore attack pointing to a "foreign hand" in the outrage. He, however, did not specifically name any country.

Urging "logic and rationality" in dealing with the aftermath of the incident, the editorial said: "We all know that groups capable of carrying out the well-planned and expertly executed attack we saw on Tuesday exist within the country.

"It is useless to turn a blind eye to the presence of forces such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) which have the capacity to stage such acts of terrorism. They of course also have reason to try and extract revenge for the crackdown against the group carried out over the past few weeks, in the aftermath of what happened at Mumbai," The News added.

Noting there was "no doubt" about the fact that the security provided to the Sri Lankan team was seriously lacking, Daily Times said: "But to unite in dumping the entire incident on India may be proved wrong in the near future and may not be a durable prop on which to lean.

"This is what happened after the Mumbai attacks when Islamabad was compelled to own that Ajmal Kasab was a Pakistani and the incident was partly planned inside Pakistan," it added.
 

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Video shows SL players were attacked near police post


Lahore: CCTV footage available show the terrorists who attacked Sri Lankan players in Lahore on Tuesday walking around freely with heavy automatic weapons in an area which should have been secured as the cricket team was scheduled to pass through the route.


The footage taken from shops in the Liberty market exposes the complete breakdown in Pakistani security during the moments that followed the shocking attack.


After exchanging fire with policemen for more than 20 minutes outside the Gaddafi Stadium, killing six policemen and two others, the terrorists are seen casually slinging rifles over their shoulders, and walking through Liberty market.


While some of them carried bags, others had dropped their grenades, rocket launchers and handguns at the scene of the shootout.


They then broke up into groups of two each, and without exchanging a word get on to motorbikes parked nearby, escaping through the heart of the city.


What makes the video more startling is that it was taken about 50 metres from the Liberty market police station. Yet not one policeman is seen in any frame of the captured footage and the questions from within Pakistan and the international community are getting louder.


Why was no one monitoring the Liberty Chowk area? Why were the attackers allowed to move so freely? Why did no one raise an alarm on seeing armed men on the streets and just how did the men get away so easily?


Just across the road at the scene of the attack, the lack of security outraged International Cricket Council Match Referee Chris Broad.


Broad saw his bus driver shot dead and fourth umpire Ahsan Raza lying in a pool of blood.


"They had clearly gone, left the scene and left us to be sitting ducks. So I am extremely angry that we were promised high level security and in our hour of need the security vanished and we were left open to anything and any issues that the terrorists wanted," Broad said in Manchester on Wednesday.


The CCTV footage also shows some more similarities to the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks.


In both the attacks the gunmen are carrying their deadly fire power in rucksacks, shooting randomly, and splitting into groups of two.


But more than ever, the critical evidence has become an obvious cause of shame for the Pakistani government, already under fire for failing to secure the honoured guests they had vowed to protect.


Security Expert B Raman said that the attack is a serious act of negligence as there was no security arranged for the players en route to the stadium.

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/video-shows-sl-players-were-attacked-near-police-post/86831-2.html

there was a police station
Hope srilankan authotrities request un investigation
 

Vinod2070

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Looking at the TV reports, the cowardice shown by the Pakistani security forces is amazing! They did not intercept the terrorists on the motorcycle directly coming at them, fled the scene as claimed by Chris Broad, leaving the players and other officials exposed to face the terrorists on their own.

Geo news and Times now are showing how the police vehicle no attempt at all to engage the terrorists. Pretty shameful conduct.
 

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Pakistan rules out indian involvement in lahore blasts

LAHORE: Pakistan on Thursday said it suspected al-Qaeda to be behind the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team and said the perpetrators have been
identified while ruling out the involvement of India or LTTE in the terror strike.

Investigators have not found any evidence of India's involvement in the attack, Interior Ministry chief Rehman Malik told reporters at the National Assembly in Islamabad. He also rejected speculation in media about possible involvement of rebel Tamil Tigers in the island nation.

The possibility of al Qaeda's involvement in Tuesday's attack could not be ruled out, he said, adding the preliminary report of the investigation will be ready by tomorrow.

Hours after the Tuesday attack, a couple of ministers and some police officials hinted at India's involvement. Malik also had said that they suspected involvement of a foreign hand but will not give details till they get proof.

As the authorities came under criticism after a dramatic video footage showed the gunmen moving leisurely after striking, Punjab Governor Salman Taseer said here "we have identified the people who have carried out the attacks. We are after them." He, however, did not give details or name any suspect.
 

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Neutral venues a trap for Pakistan: Bindra

Updated at: 1945 PST, Thursday, March 05, 2009


NEW DELHI: ICC's principal adviser I.S. Bindra said the idea of playing cricket at neutral venues on security grounds is a dangerous trap.

Bindra said he has already warned Pakistan against any such move as it would affect the long-term future of its cricket.

"I am totally against Pakistan agreeing to play in the neutral venues because then you are ruling out for quite some time an option of playing within the country," Bindra told a cricket website.

"That's what I advised Ijaz Butt in the last meeting of the ICC board in Perth I said, Don't agree to play Tests in neutral venues like England because then there will be reluctance on part of the players to come and play in Pakistan'. This is a very dangerous precedent and we shouldn't fall into the trap of playing in neutral venues on the grounds of security."

Bindra's warning follows reports that Pakistan and Australia are considering a proposal to hold their 2010 Test series in England after the Lahore attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team. Gerry Sutcliffe, the British sports minister, has said he would back any move by the PCB to stage home matches in England. Pakistan and Australia are scheduled to play a one-day series and a Twenty20 game in Dubai and Abu Dhabi from April 22-May 7.

The Lahore attack would impact cricket in Pakistan in the immediate future, Bindra said, but hoped that the country could still co-host the 2011 World Cup. "We shouldn't rule out cricket in Pakistan in the long-term future yet," he said. "I hope normalcy will come back quickly and we will have cricket there quickly, before the 2011 World Cup and we are looking forward to that."


http://thenews.jang.com.pk/updates.asp?id=70567
 

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