NEW DELHI/LAHORE: India denounced “hopelessly inadequate” Pakistani security after yesterday’s attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore and cited Islamabad for failing to crush militant groups on its soil.
“The security for the Sri Lankan cricket team was hopelessly inadequate,” Home Minister P. Chidambaram said as he condemned the assault by gunmen that left eight people dead and wounded 11 including seven team members.
Former Pakistan captain Imran Khan also blamed lax security for yesterday’s attack, saying officials must be held to account for the incident. Khan, now a politician, blasted security lapses and said officials must explain how gunmen were able to launch their attack. “First of all I apologize to the Sri Lankan team for they toured Pakistan despite huge pressure. I strongly condemn the security provided to the Sri Lankan team because it was 10 times less than what is given to Interior Ministry Adviser Rehman Malik,” he said.
“Sri Lankans were assured of top-level security but there was lax security and I think from the governor of Punjab to police officials, all must be made accountable — how the gunmen openly shot at a high-profile team,” Khan said.
The Indian government, which had ordered its players to steer clear of Pakistan, said the incident proved Islamabad was not doing enough to combat known militant networks.
“It reminds us it is the responsibility of the incumbent government to take all precautions and all steps, particularly when the international community wants member countries to take certain positive steps to fight against terrorism,” Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee told reporters.
“Unless infrastructure and facilities available to terrorist organizations within Pakistan or territory under its control are completely dismantled... repetition of these incidents will take place,” he said.
Both ministers’ comments are likely to further stoke tensions with Pakistan which are already running high in the wake of last November’s attacks in Mumbai, which New Delhi blamed on Pakistan-based militants. At least 165 people were killed in Mumbai in which 10 gunmen targeted multiple locations in Mumbai.
Khaled Farooq, chief of police in Pakistan’s Punjab province, said the shooting in Lahore bore all the hallmarks of the Mumbai assault.
The Sri Lankan team was only in Pakistan because a tour by the Indian team had been canceled after the Mumbai attacks. “It was not a pleasant decision (to cancel) but we were constrained to take it because the security situation in Pakistan was not safe,” Mukherjee said, calling on Islamabad to “take strict measures” against those responsible.
“This menace, which is the biggest menace... in the post-Cold War era, should be tackled,” he said Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman Vishnu Prakash also piled pressure on Islamabad, saying Pakistan-based “terrorists” were a threat to the entire world. “It is in Pakistan’s own interest to take prompt, meaningful and decisive steps to dismantle the terrorist infrastructure once and for all,” Prakash said.
“We are shocked at the incident,” he added.
India’s Minister of State for External Affairs Anand Sharma said the attack underscored “the enormity of the threat” emerging from Pakistan, while India’s governing Congress party branded Pakistan “the epicenter and fountainhead of terror.” “Every country in the world must unite against this scourge by isolating the country and demanding immediate concrete results,” Congress spokesman Abhishek Singhvi said.
The incident “highlights the grave security situation in Pakistan,” the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) said in a statement. The CPI-M also expressed hope that “the peace-loving and democratic people of Pakistan will unitedly and resolutely take up the challenge of facing this serious threat.”
Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief and former BCCI President Sharad Pawar condemned the attack saying: “I had never thought that this would ever happen to cricket.” The incident will have serious implications for the 2011 World Cup to be held in Indian subcontinent, he said. “It would be difficult to host the World Cup matches in Pakistan considering the volatile situation there,” he said.
— With input from agencies
