Pakistani investigators were following “important leads” to identify who was behind the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore, foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said yesterday.
The ambush in broad daylight, and the apparent ease with which about a dozen gunmen escaped after a firefight with police of almost 30 minutes, sent shudders through a world fearful of nuclear-armed Pakistan’s inability to contain rising militancy.
“We also have some important leads that would eventually unearth people responsible for this terrible act,” Mr Qureshi told a news conference with his Sri Lankan counterpart in Islamabad.
Sri Lankan foreign minister Rohitha Bogollagama said this was the first attack on its nationals outside the country and he did not rule out the possibility that the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) movement was involved.
Desperate for leads, police rounded up scores of people without establishing any link, according to officials, although one officer said a mobile phone had been found that led to the arrest of at least one real suspect.
Seven Pakistanis, including six police and the driver of a bus carrying match officials, were killed in Tuesday’s attack on the Sri Lankan team as it was being driven to the Gadafy Stadium for the third day of a match against Pakistan. Six Sri Lankan players were wounded along with two team officials, including a British assistant coach. They flew back to Colombo along with the rest of the tour party on Tuesday night.
ICC match referee Chris Broad told a news conference in London yesterday that he and other match officials had been left like “sitting ducks” by a lack of security.
The Punjab government has offered a reward of about $125,000 for information on the attackers, who were armed with AK 47s, hand grenades and rocket propelled grenades.
Television footage showed gunmen wearing tracksuits and trainers and shalwar kameez, traditional long shirts and baggy pants. Some looked to be barely 20 years old. They appeared to leave the scene of the attack quite calmly, either walking or on motor cycles.
Pakistan has reeled under a wave of bomb and gun attacks in recent years, mostly carried out by Islamist militants linked to the Taliban or al-Qaeda, but arch nationalists would relish a link being found between rival India and the Lahore attack.
There is a long list of possible suspects for the attack in Lahore. The Tamil Tigers are close to defeat in northern Sri Lanka and have a history of deadly guerrilla attacks. “LTTE definitely, we believe have outside links and international connections to other terrorist organisations but these are matters that we cannot discuss in the open,” said Mr Bogollagama.
Speculation has otherwise focused largely on two Pakistani jihadi groups – Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Laskhar-Jhangvi (LeJ), as well as the Pakistani Taliban.
LeJ, a Sunni Muslim group, is regarded as a cat’s paw for al-Qaeda in Pakistan and has been linked to several high-profile strikes including the suicide truck bomb attack that killed 55 people at Islamabad’s Marriott hotel last September.
Pakistan arrested some LeT members after India and the US said the group was responsible for the slaughter of about 170 people in the Indian city of Mumbai last November. The group is also said to have links to al-Qaeda.
Formed to fight Indian rule in Kashmir, LeT has had good relations with Pakistani intelligence agencies in the past, and there is pressure on Pakistan to cut any remaining jihadi ties.
Several observers noted some similarities between the Lahore and Mumbai attacks. – ( Reuters)