New Delhi: A dozen heavily armed terrorists sprayed the Sri Lankan team bus with bullets and lobbed grenades at the convoy very close to Lahore's Gaddafi stadium. The convoy was ambushed by these heavily armed terrorists at the busy Liberty Chowk roundabout.
Tuesday's ambush has raised serious security concerns in Pakistan. Usually any cricket team visiting Pakistan is provided with a Z Class security, which means that there is a mock caravan trailing the team.
The team bus should have had two pilot motorcycles, a vehicle full of commandos and police officers along with traffic personnel surrounding it. This grade of security also means that the routes keep changing and whichever route is being followed is made signal-free.
But in this instance routes were not changed and nor were they sanitised for reasons unknown. The Pakistan Punjab Police said that intelligence inputs were not concrete and they couldn't do much in terms of safety.
WHO IS BEHIND THESE ATTACKS?
Investigations into the ambush on the Sri Lankan cricket team are on and Pakistan's Defence Minister Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar told CNN-IBN that it's too early to come to that conclusion.
"The government has arrested four people for carrying out this attack. We have confiscated ammunition as well. We are only seeing what has happened on Tuesday. We don't want to play the blame game now," he stated.
Mukhtar also said that the security protocol was being followed and the fact that five Pakistani Police personnel died in the attack was proof of the fact.
"The entire attack was so sudden, but we will get the perpetrators. We will come to some conclusions soon," he said.
At least six players were injured though they are all out of danger now. Five policemen and two civilians were however not so lucky, they were killed on the spot.
The fourth umpire, Ehsan Raza, is critical and is in intensive care in a Lahore hospital.
Since the driver of the team bus was unhurt, he was able to drive quickly to the inside of Gaddafi stadium, from where the team was airlifted later on by helicopters. The cricketers then returned to Sri Lanka, in a special aircraft.
The attack has now raised questions about Pakistan hosting the 2011 World Cup. The ICC said it is not certain to what extent Pakistan will be involved in the tournament as cricketers are reluctant to go there.
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