Indian intelligence 'linked' to attack on Sri Lankan team: adnkronos

Lahore, 3 March (AKI) - By Syed Saleem Shahzad - Indian intelligence services are behind Tuesday's attack against the Sri Lankan cricket team in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore, according to Pakistani analysts. At least five policemen died in the ambush by 12 masked gunmen, and six cricketers and their assistant coach were injured.

Some analysts said India's Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) was behind the attack against the team bus outside Lahore's Ghaddafi Stadium, in which a Pakistani test umpire was critically injured.

“The event was crafted on the pattern of Mumbai attacks of November, 2008 and its aims and objectives are apparently to damage Pakistan’s interests," a defence expert retired major general Jamshed Ayaz told Adnkronos International (AKI).

He was referring to the deadly assault against tourist targets in the Indian financial capital of Mumbai, which killed at least 170 people. India blamed outlawed militant Kashmiri separaratist group Laskar-e-Toiba for the Mumbai attacks.

"This job could only have been done by forces allied with Pakistan’s enemy country,” Ayaz claimed.

The test match has been called off and the Sri Lankan cricket team has flown home, reportedly badly shaken by the attack.

“It is not my place to comment on who was behind the incident but obviously Pakistanis are cricket lovers and they would never do that," former Pakistan Test Cricketer Zaheer Abbas told AKI.

"There is a possibility of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam being behind the event,” said Abbas.

But a spokesperson of the Sri Lankan Embassy in Islamabad denied that the militants from the LTTE were behind the attack. The spokesperson said however that the police motorcade escorting the Sri Lankan cricket team had been the target and that the cricketers were just caught in the crossfire.

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