Opinion Lahore attack

The attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore evoked fear and wrath in the Pakistani press against their own country. Former foreign secretary Najmuddin Shaikh in Daily Times on March 6 criticised the efficiency of Pakistan’s security apparatus: “The incident has been compared to the Mumbai attack. Indian authorities were lambasted for the poor security that allowed the attack to go forward. Indian security could not prevent the carnage from continuing over a 72-hour period but ultimately,killed all the terrorists and captured one…India’s image as a country safe for tourists and investment was dented but not very seriously. It was able to portray itself as a victim of foreign terrorism and as a country determined to create the security apparatus needed to prevent such a recurrence. Lahore was different. The dozen assailants hit a ‘hard’ well-protected target. We had trained security squads presumably well-equipped and well placed to call upon reinforcements if needed. Yet the assailants all escaped after shooting up,over a 30-minute period.”

The March 4 editorial in The News introspected: “One thing of which we may be certain is that whoever attacked the convoy of the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore — they did not arrive by boat. The culture of instinctive denial clicked into gear immediately,fingers were as quickly pointed. The reality is this is just as likely to be an attack by our home-grown terrorist organisations . There is no shortage of highly-competent,well-armed and trained groups within our own borders. They have no need of foreign assistance — there are plenty of people here happy to finance them and offer logistical support. No shortage either of groups wishing to undermine the government. The attack was carried out close to a police station and the attackers must have conducted a reconnaissance for them to set up a kill-zone — and nobody noticed. Meanwhile,the prospect of us hosting international sporting events in future vanishes. Nobody is going to tour here for a very long time,be they cricketers,hockey players or players of tiddlywinks.” Assessing the long-term ramification the attacks could have on other dimensions of Pakistan’s international reputation,it continued: “Who will make foreign investment into our businesses? Or run the relief agencies that support the refugees from our own internal warfare? Or provide training and support to our educationists?”

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Echoing the same note,the Daily Times on March 5 denounced Pakistan’s initial observation of foreign involvement in the terror plot. “These are ideologically motivated millenarians,ahistorical in their approach and literalist in their outlook. They are trained,and societal attitudes transformed over three decades allow them to find recruits with alarming ease.”

Meanwhile,The News on March 5 quoted Interior Ministry sources as attempting a face-saving exercise as it reported: “Listen,the prestige of our intelligence agencies — touting their conduct of successful overseas operations,particularly in Afghanistan during the Jihad days — is now at stake. The whole world is watching whether we would be able to trace the killers still at large.” Daily Times seemed to take strong notice of the news as its editorial not only rubbished rumours of an Indian or Lankan involvement in the attacks but also derided the intelligence agencies’ self-deprecating exercise of making ill-founded and immature evaluations aimed at maiming the already bruised relations. “The report of Crime Investigation Department (CID) Punjab that has attributed the attack to India seems to have been adopted as “revelation” by the media. The report was ignored possibly because it had not expressed its intent competently. One can say it is no great feat of analysis. One wishes it had looked closely at the source to see if it was planting something on the CID to widen the rift between India and Pakistan and bring relief to the terrorist elements under pressure from the army in the tribal areas. This device of seeking such ‘relief’ was also seen in the Mumbai attacks.”