Lahore attack: One year on, police yet to make significant headway
March 3, 2010 07:56 am
It has been a year since the attack on the Sri Lankan
cricket team – in which a dozen gunmen attacked the team bus with rifles,
grenades and pistols, wounding six players, a British coach and a Pakistani
umpire and killing seven policemen.
Since the attack, two assailants have been arrested, one was shot and killed
while one of the facilitators was identified and is in prison and four others
are still at large.
One of the arrested men was identified as Zubair, a key member of a banned
militant group. He confessed to the police that they had planned to take the
cricket team hostage but their plan “changed” in the wake of the situation
after the attack. The attackers ambushed the Sri Lankan team’s convoy on
Liberty Roundabout on March 3, 2009 and fired AK-47s and rockets and hurled
grenades at the team’s bus.
The attackers fled after a 25-minute crossfire with police. A few months after
the attack, police arrested Zubair and Aqeel while their accomplice Malik Ishaq
– who is accused of assisting them – has been arrested under Section 109 and is
in the
Omar alias Abdul Wahab, Samiullah Pathan, Jabar Pathan and Adnan alias Sajjad
were identified after interrogating Zubair and Aqeel. The four are said to be
hiding in the NWFP.
Besides affecting cricket, the attack resulted in the cancellation of a lot of
sports activities. Security agencies and senior police officials had some
explaining to do to the authorities. Locations of the police officers were
verified through their mobile phones and messages on their wireless sets were
rechecked for
errors on their part.
On the day of the attack, 1,500 policemen had been deputed on The Mall in front
of the Punjab Assembly, the Governor’s House and the Chief Minister’s
Secretariat.
Deaths: Criminal Record Office Superintendent of Police Faisal Gulzar, who was
serving as the Civil Lines DSP then, was the only official who reached the
hotel and escorted the Sri Lankan cricket team from his own jurisdiction. “The
impact of that attack is going to last very long as the country’s image has
been maligned by it. There was a security lapse that not only cost us the lives
of our fellow policemen but also made us seem unprofessional for failing to
protect our guests,” he said.
Remaining attackers: Deputy Inspector General (Investigation) Shoaib Dastagir
told Daily Times that it is not possible to uncover all the terrorist links in
such a limited time. He said the people who travelled hundreds of miles to
another place for committing terrorist activities are very cautious about their
plans and assets. But it was an achievement by law enforcers that they killed
one of the attackers, arrested two and identified another who is in jail. He
said information gathering about the remaining men and their links would take
some time, adding that the security agencies were working round the clock for
capturing the remaining assailants.