Pakistan now sees Indian hand in Sri Lankan team attack

LAHORE: The Pakistani authorities have apparently decided to shift on India the blame for the 3/3 Lahore terrorist attack on Sri Lankan cricket team despite the fact that the initial findings by the intelligence agencies had given broad hints about the involvement of the Lashkar-e-Toiba.

Six policemen and a Pakistan Cricket Board van driver lost their lives when a group of a dozen terrorists ambushed Sri Lankan cricketers’ convoy near the Liberty roundabout in Lahore on March 3. Six of the Sri Lankan players suffered injuries. A four-member police team, headed by Punjab’s Additional Inspector-General of Police (Investigation) Salahuddin Khan Niazi, and another joint investigation team comprising officials of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) and Intelligence Bureau (IB), have been investigating the matter.

Well placed intelligence sources in Islamabad say despite having solid evidence regarding the involvement of the LeT in the Lahore terrorist attack, the Pakistani authorities are reluctant to name the Lashkar which had already been blamed for India for carrying out the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks. After preliminary probe, the Pakistani authorities had first maintained that there is evidence to suggest that the operation was planned by the LeT operatives who possibly wanted to take the Sri Lankan sportsmen hostage to demand the release of their arrested commander and the chief plotter of the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi.

However, while changing tack, the Pakistani advisor on interior Rehman Malik had ruled out the involvement of the LeT in the attack last week, followed by the media reports quoting official sources, saying that the 3/3 operation was actually carried out had been carried out by an al-Qaeda-linked sunni sectarian banned terrorist group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ). But the authorities failed to explain the motive behind the attack. Yet in a latest movem, the Pakistani authoirities have now accused India for the Lahore attack, saying the fedrocket-launchers and explosives used during the terrorist operation on the Sri Lankan cricket team are in the use of Indian forces.

The forensic report prepared by the Pakistani experts states that the four rocket-launchers and nine explosives seized from the crime scene are factory-made and used by Indian forces. Although none of the 12 terrorists involved in the gory act has been arrested so far, the investigators have come up with a claim based on positive leads that none of the Pakistani militant organisations had the capacity to carry out the Lahore attack without the help of a state agency. This is despite the fact that the Pakistani authorities have simply failed to nab any of the 12 attackers.

According to the findings by Pakistani authorities, 40 grenades, 10 sub-machine guns, five pistols, 577 live rounds of SMGs and 160 bullets of pistols were also found from the site. The terrorists reportedly fired 312 bullets, two rockets and detonated two grenades. However, no suicide jacket was found at the scene, suggesting that the attackers were not on a suicide mission. The authorities here say the Investigators are now convinced that the mastermind of the attack had four objectives: (1) To sour Pakistan’s relations with Sri Lanka, (2) to stop foreign teams from coming to Pakistan, (3) to destabilise Pakistan and (4) to tell Pakistan that its state agency is more capable than its (ISI) in carrying out such attacks even in the midst of huge security presence.

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