India Is emerging As A Prime Suspect In Pakistan

[Communist]

In Pakistan, India is emerging as prime suspect

Nirupama Subramanian
ISLAMABAD: Despite an early statement by the Governor of Pakistan’s Punjab province, Salman Taseer, that “the same people who carried out the Mumbai attacks are behind the attack in Lahore,” India is emerging as a prime suspect in the eyes of many Pakistanis.

In the hours following the Lahore attack, some in Pakistan’s influential electronic media said on air they did not want to mirror the finger-pointing by the Indian media following the Mumbai attacks.

Even so, many discussions on several television channels with talking heads and politicians, both elected and un-elected, centred on speculation that Indian intelligence agencies were responsible for the brazen commando-style attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team as a revenge against the Mumbai attacks.

Rehman Malik, who heads the Interior Ministry, only talked of a “foreign hand,” refusing to name the country.

But at least two elected representatives of the Pakistan People’s Party — Riaz Raja, a member of the Punjab provincial Assembly and Nabeel Gabol, who is in the National Assembly — openly accused India for the attack.

Jamat-i-Islami leader Qazi Hussain also accused Indian intelligence agencies of planning and carrying out the attack.

Commentators are also not entirely ruling out the possibility of Pakistani militant groups hitting out against the state, with some bringing up the possibility that it could even be a retaliation for the action the government took against the Punjab-based Laskhar-e-Taiba following the Mumbai attack.

But the Indian angle came up in different ways. In an apparent effort to link India with the attack, Geo Television played a clip of Congress president Sonia Gandhi saying at a public meeting that Pakistan should not mistake India’s desire for peace as a sign of its weakness, and that India was capable of giving a “fitting response.”

Lt. Gen. (retd.) Hamid Gul, a former head of the Inter-services Intelligence, told one TV channel that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, cornered by the army in Sri Lanka, had carried it out at the behest of India’s Research and Analysis Wing.

By Tuesday evening, rumours were doing the rounds that the weapons found at the site of the attack bore Indian markings. They persisted despite Mr. Malik’s remarks that only a forensic analysis would reveal the origins of the weapons.

Meanwhile, the Sharif brothers, disqualified from elected office, and their PML(N) government ousted in the Punjab province only last Wednesday, had the satisfaction of blaming “Governor Raj” for the security lapses that led to the attack.

The former Chief Minister, Shabaz Sharif, told a press conference in Lahore that instead of concentrating on providing the best security to the Sri Lankan team, Governor Salman Taseer had been holding meetings “to discuss strategies for horse-trading” to enable the PPP to form the next government in the province.

He expressed the PML(N)’s determination to go ahead with its participation in a “long march” called by lawyers next week to press President Asif Ali Zardari to restore deposed Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhary.

The Hindu : Front Page : In Pakistan, India is emerging as prime suspect

 

[Communist]

US calls it attack on Sri Lanka, Pakistan relations
By Anwar Iqbal
Wednesday, 04 Mar, 2009 | 02:04 AM PST


WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama on Tuesday expressed deep concern over a terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore while the State Department said it was an assault on ‘positive relations’ between Sri Lanka and Pakistan.

‘Obviously, we are very deeply concerned,’ said the US president when asked to comment on the attack which killed eight people and wounded seven members of the Sri Lankan team.

During press availability at the White House with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Mr Obama declined to offer further comments, saying, ‘the details are still coming in, so I do not want to be too specific.’

Meanwhile, at the State Department Deputy Spokesman Gordon K. Duguid described the terrorist act as an attack on ‘positive relations’ between Sri Lanka and Pakistan.

‘We condemn this vicious attack on innocent civilians but also on the positive relations that Pakistan and Sri Lanka are trying to enjoy,’ he told a briefing.

‘This is not just an attack on individuals. This is an attack on peaceful, normal relations, and we utterly condemn this terrorist attack,’ Mr Duguid said.

While expressing sympathies for those killed or wounded in the attack, the US official noted that ‘the Pakistani police … were extremely brave in protecting their charges and should be commended.’

Mr Duguid’s comments led to immediate speculations in Washington’s diplomatic circles about the identity of the attackers, although so far no group or individual has claimed responsibility for the act.

Some observers pointed out that if the aim was to further isolate Pakistan in the international community, the terrorists operating from the tribal areas could be the immediate suspect.

Others, however, noted that if the aim was to hurt relations between Pakistan and Sri Lanka, which is a big purchaser of arms and ammunition from Pakistan, then there could be two obvious suspects: militant groups backed by Indian intelligence agencies or Sri Lanka’s Tamil separatists.

The observers argue that if there’s an Indian involvement, it would be seen as countering the Mumbai terror attack, which pushed relations between India and Pakistan to a new low.

The other possibility – the involvement of Tamil separatists – could not be ruled out either, particularly after the Sri Lankan government’s recent victories against the LTTE, which appear to have decimated the terrorist group.

Meanwhile, at the State Department, spokesman Duguid indicated that the US Embassy in Islamabad might issue a fresh travel warning for citizens after the attack on the Sri Lankan.

‘The embassy is very good at keeping the travel warnings updated. I don't know when our last one was, but we'll —we'll look into that,’ said Mr Duguid.

http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect...it-attack-on-sri+lanka-pakistan-relations--bi

 

[Communist]

Special Broadcast !!!
Attack on Srilankan Team, Ansar Abasi Reveals Secret Documents:

Serious security lapse deliberately created by the Punjab Governeor Salman Taseer as he changed IG Punjab, CCPO Lahore and 6 top SPs and concerned officers. Documents proving that, the Punjab government was well informed since 22nd January 2009 that Raw is going to target the Srilankan team during their visit to Pakistan, are discovered. The Governor and all who supported and played a deliberate role in this dirty game plan against the God Gifted Islamic State of Pakistan...

 

[Communist]

Special Broadcast !!!
The Editor's Show: Exclusive discussion about attack on Srilankan cricket team with Gen Hamid Nawaz and Zaid Hamid:
An exclusive discussion in The Editor's Show with Zaid Hamid and Gen Hamid Nawaz about who could be involved in Lahore attach on Srilankan Cricket team? Who is attacking our long standing friends? What could be the intentions behind it? Is it regional game? Are there any links with Mumbai Attack? and much more...

PakVideos - Editor Showiscussion on attack on Srilanka Team

 

[Rehmat]

The following link could disperse some of the fog around this tragedy.

Who were behind Mumbai attacks?

 

[Energon]

Special Broadcast !!!
The Editor's Show: Exclusive discussion about attack on Srilankan cricket team with Gen Hamid Nawaz and Zaid Hamid:
An exclusive discussion in The Editor's Show with Zaid Hamid and Gen Hamid Nawaz about who could be involved in Lahore attach on Srilankan Cricket team? Who is attacking our long standing friends? What could be the intentions behind it? Is it regional game? Are there any links with Mumbai Attack? and much more...

PakVideos - Editor Showiscussion on attack on Srilanka Team

Its usually bad news for reality when Zaid Hamid endorses a theory.

 

[Neo]

Lahore Attacks: The Indian Fingerprints ​

3 March, 2009
By AHMED QURAISHI

The Indian fingerprints in the attack on the Sri Lankan cannot be ignored. New Delhi has been at war with both Islamabad and Colombofor decades. Hitting both in one place is a masterstroke. Indian military and its agents should brace for retaliation.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—You can’t ignore the symbolism: Commando-style trained young men with backpacks, carrying automatic machine guns and armed with grenades and rocket launchers, bearing a shocking resemblance to the video footage released by the Indian government of the Mumbai attackers in November.

The Indian connection, even if indirect and unintentional, cannot be ignored:

Lahore is the same city where Pakistani antiterrorism police arrested several Indian citizens and their Pakistani accomplices in the past few weeks and paraded them in public with evidence linking them to India’s spy agency Research & Analysis Wing, or RAW. Lahore lies a few kilometers away from the Indian border and has bore the brunt of India’s covert operations in the 1970s and 1980s, mostly randomly planted bombs in public places designed to spread terror.

Pakistani security officials had received a report that at least ten Indian operatives have crossed the border into Lahore 48 hours before the attacks.

India spearheaded a campaign to convince several countries to sever sports relations with Pakistan and put tremendous pressure on Sri Lanka not to send its cricket team to play here.

India has a history of supporting the terrorist LTTE group and arming it with sophisticated weapons to fight the Sri Lankan government and army. Pakistan, on the other hand, has been supporting Sri Lanka against this terrorism. India has long been disturbed by the close relationship between Colombo and Islamabad. In this connection, Sri Lanka’s foreign minister’s statement is important. He said he won’t point fingers but said ‘terrorism has no borders’, an implied suggestion that the Sri Lankans believe the perpetrators came from outside Pakistan.

The timing of the attack shows the professional planning. Lahore administration was in a flux after the change of provincial government. Lahore was also the last Pakistani city that has not yet been affected by the fallout from America’s failed and disastrous war in Afghanistan. This incident effectively brings chaos to Lahore as well. The rest of Pakistan is already being destabilized by foreign intelligence operatives working from the Afghan soil, inserting professional saboteurs and flushing the country with money to recruit criminals and activating them under the guise of religious extremists.

An important point to note here is that whoever planned this attack made sure that the terrorists look similar to Mumbai attackers. This can be an attempt to spark more conflict between Pakistan and India. In this case, if evidence is found, it might be interesting to probe the possibility of a third party trying to push both countries to war. And it’s not just religious elements in Pakistan that want this. There is an organized terrorist infrastructure inside India, manned by Hindu terrorist groups with recruits from Indian military intelligence. The same Indian elements are also active in Kabul and other Afghan cities, using the Afghan soil to export terrorism inside Pakistan. American reports have also linked these Indian elements to attacks on U.S. and NATO soldiers and blame them on Pakistan.

There is enough circumstantial and physical evidence that involves India’s intelligence agencies in terrorism inside Pakistan.

The Pakistani military must realize that this is an organized and not a guerrilla war that is being waged against Pakistan. This terrorism is deceptively hiding itself behind the label of religious extremism, and has links with those countries that are actively destabilizing Pakistan from the inside.

It is time now that patriotic Pakistanis and the Pakistani military sit up and take notice of the apologetic statements of this U.S.-installed government in Islamabad which, like the Indians, wasted no time in linking the Lahore attack to the Mumbai attacks, which means linking it to Pakistanis (which is not proven except in the minds of India, their American backers and their backers in Pakistan, i.e. President Zardari, Rehman Malik, Sherry Rehman, and the former advisor Mehmud Durrani.) In this case, if the Zardari government is accusing ‘Mumbai attackers’ of this latest attack, then this government is indirectly accusing the Pakistani military and our intelligence of attacking the Sri Lankans in Lahore. This is in continuation of the covert efforts by elements in this government to cause a confrontation between the Pakistani military and the world at large.

Pakistan’s response must be methodical. This is the time to expose Indian terrorism. There is stunning evidence available with Pakistani authorities about Indian activities in Afghanistan, inside Pakistan’s tribal and border areas and inside the rest of Pakistan. The Zardari government will not bring this evidence forward. It is the responsibility of the Pakistani military and its spy agencies to force this government to unmask the Indian activities. Enough of this apologetic attitude toward India. We urge Pakistan to publicly demand that Indian’s sponsorship of terrorism be curbed.

The Indians should also brace for retaliation. If Indian military and security forces are using terrorism against Pakistan in multiple places, then Indians from these organizations should be a fair game for retaliation.

 

[wtf]

First of all let me express condolences for the incident and our thoughts my with all the people affected.

I do not believe India had any hand in this. The first thing is the similarity between the attacks. If India got taken by surprise in Mumbai and decided to retaliate, they seem to have done it exceptionally well. They would have managed to get a group in to Pakistan, arm them, train them, gotten them to fit into Lahore, get routes of Sri Lankan team and pull off an attack all in 2 months.

Knowing the ability of Indian Police and the public service, I would be surprised if anyone in the Indian administration managed to pull this one off.

The second point is of motives - There is nothing to be gained for India from this. Lahore is right across the border from Amritsar. An unstable Pakistan is not in India's interest since terrorists will then much more easily cross across into India.
The congress party is unlikely to gain anything from retaliating since they don't really seem to be in a position to gain from chaos in Pakistan - that is simply not a poll issue - the security of Indian people is the bigger issue.


It is much more likely that one of the parties who are affected by the recent changes in Pakistan decided to retaliate in a way that takes attention off of them and there are far too many of them right now in Pakistan. So I won't speculate.

That said, I would have preferred a slightly more mellow response from India. If I were the spokesperson, this is what I would have said.

• We think what happened is wrong and we condemn it
• We have nothing to do with this
• If by any chance any Indians are involved, we'll let the courts handle it.

Talking in a tone of "I told you so" does not help heal a hurt mind, even if it is technically correct. The only excuse I can think of is that the Indian response was meant for Indian press and not for Pakistan.

 

[Torpedo]

ISLAMABAD, March 5: Investigators are zeroing in on the footprints of the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), according to preliminary investigations by the Joint Investigation Team probing Tuesday’s attack on Sri Lankan cricketers at Lahore’s Liberty Chowk.

Sketchy details of the initial probe suggest that a group of headstrong Lashkar activists, who went underground and remained in hiding in Rawalpindi after the crackdown on Lashkar and Jamaatud Dawa in December, had acted on their own and carried out the attack.

Although officials would not confirm the involvement of Lashkar, they categorically ruled out the possibility of involvement of the Indian spy agency RAW (Research and Analysis Wing) or the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) as no evidence has been found so far pointing in their direction.

At least eight people, six policemen among them, were killed after 12 gunmen attacked the bus carrying Sri Lankan cricketers to Qadhafi Stadium. The attack has killed hopes of any international sports events in Pakistan for months, if not years, and seriously damaged Pakistan’s reputation to host any international sporting event, including the 2011 Cricket World Cup.

The prime minister’s adviser on interior, Rehman Malik, refused to comment on the investigations when asked. “At this moment I can only say that investigations into the Lahore attack are going in the right direction. We have also involved the National Database Registration Authority (Nadra) to determine the identity of the attackers,” he

This news from front page of Dawn, today's issue.

@ communist

I see that you are quite desperate to see Indo-Pak war. Better luck next time.

 

[Contrarian]

Lahore Attacks: The Indian Fingerprints ​

3 March, 2009
By AHMED QURAISHI

Neo, is this a reputable source in Pakistan. Because the article is absolute horsecr@p in terms of facts. I could take the time out to refute the article but it would be a waste of time.

 

[godsavetheworld]

India has been given a clean chit by Pakistani investigating agencies, then why are all Pakistani members stil speculating Indian involvement.