In South Asia, the game of Cricket has stolen the hearts of the elite mass and the cricketers are Semi-gods to cricket fans. The recent attack on the Sri Lankan cricketers in Lahore – Pakistan, by the terrorists has made the people of the Indian sub continent guess who could have planned such an attack. People are unwilling to wait for the completion of enquiry which might take time to bring out the truth. Their imagination is running high challenging even an intelligence agency.
Rocket barrels and grenades were used in the attack, killing six policemen and civilian.
The distressing situation is that the initial perception about the unknown culprits are not the same in Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka and the rest of the world.
In Pakistan:
The common man is brain washed by successive governments to believe that every terrorist attack is the handiwork of the Indian intelligence agencies. Therefore the statements issued by the authorities of Pakistan at the heat of the moment shall conveniently point the finger to India, without any evidences.
Immediately after the attack, Geo Television in Pakistan quoted an intelligence report in January that specifically warned against an Indian intelligence terror plot on the Sri Lankan cricket team. Mr. Rehman Malik – Pakistan’s Interior Ministry head said a “foreign hand” was behind the attack. Lahore Commissioner Khushro Pervaiz said the Indian involvement cannot be ruled out. Retired Gen Hameed Gul – a former chief of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) said that India wanted to declare Pakistan a terrorist state and the firing on the Sri Lankan team was related to that conspiracy.
The knee jerk reaction of Pakistan establishment clearly indicates their fear about India and it will be another story later when they will follow the lines of USA in finding out the conspiracy.
In India:
The crime has been committed in the Pakistani soil on Sri Lankan citizens, in which India is not a party. Anyway, this incident is compared with the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai. India blames the Lahore attack on the same terrorist organization which conducted 26/11 Mumbai attacks. India shall attribute a motivation in the Lahore attack as an attempt to prevent the investigation and action on the criminals who were involved in the Mumbai attacks. It has been reported that highly placed sources in the government of India have informed the media that Lashkar-e-Taiba is behind this attack.
Sri Lankan cricketer Mahela Jayawardene with his wife Christina Sirisena
The Indian media projects the video of the two young men with bags on their back as enough evidence to say both are similar and conducted by the same terrorist organization operating in Pakistan. The media in India face stiff competition and have to present sensational stories and in the process have turned themselves in to comical investigators. If one were to believe them, they will be made to fear any young man in the 20′s wearing a jean and carrying a backpack.
The incidents in Pakistan help the Hindu fundamentalists in India to spread their propaganda to alienate the Muslim community from the mainstream politics and consolidate their hate campaign to mobilize majority votes in the up coming parliamentary election.
In Sri Lanka:
Just by hearsay the Sinhala people can easily be led to believe that LTTE must be behind the attacks without any investigation or evidence. The politicians and governments of majority politics always project one enemy to fight in order to buy political power.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa is under fire for sending the team to Pakistan and fit in to a match schedule turned down by India and Australia. Had he declined to send the team this incident could have been prevented. But the President wanted to show solidarity with Pakistan for the moral and military help rendered by Pakistan in its fight against LTTE.
It is unfortunate that the Sri Lankan cricket team has been made a pawn for the diplomacy of the Sri Lankan government. May be the President was encouraged by the fact that recently the Indian team played in Sri Lanka and returned home safely amidst the intense civil war in the country. But one should not forget that the Indian Cricket team had no threat from the LTTE and the inadequate security arrangement in Sri Lanka was not a threat to the safety of the players of both countries.
Sri Lankan cricketer Ajantha Mendis was one of the seven wounded player
It can be called as a poetic injustice to note that the terrorists who came to attack Srl Lankan Cricketers in Pakistan used a white car just like the forces in the Sinhala government that sends death squads in the infamous “white van” to take away the Tamils for killing and include their names in the list of “disappeared” in Sri Lanka.
However the Sri Lankan diplomatic sources in Islamabad have already denied about the involvement of the embattled LTTE terming it as “unlikely”. But they also wish to say that they cannot rule out LTTE.
And in the rest of the World?
It is no different. The US counter terrorism official have reportedly said that Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba are possible suspects. The Americans would like to indict Taliban since their government fights a war on terror in Afghanistan.
Well, for the question – who attacked the Sri Lankan Ccicketers, the blame game in Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka and in the rest of the world does not reflect any sense of enquiry but shows only the fear to their respective enemies. Be it Indian intelligence, Lashkar-e-Taiba , LTTE, Talban, all the predictions have surfaced according to Geography and Psychology pushing the truth down.
If this attitude continues our calendars will be filled with all the 365 dates showing the likes of 1983/7/24, 2001/9/11, 2001/12/13, 2002/2/27, 2002/2/28, 2003/8/25, 2008/11/26, 2009/03/03 etc. A global citizen promoting universal brotherhood should be concerned about this attitude.The only consolation is that no Sri Lankan cricketer was fatally injured thanks to the timely action of the Pakistani security personnel and the bus driver.
In a broader sense if we ponder over this incident, it is undoubtful that this attack came from an outfit which wants to rule Pakistan by isolating that country from the international community – especially from the people of South Asia.
The terrorists or non state actors in Pakistan must be happy that they have successfully prevented any more game of cricket in their home ground, particularly considering the fundamentalist ideals having developed dislike for the women coming out in public and seen in Televisions on occasions of a cricket match. This is beyond the imagination of the people in the rest of the world who consider themselves as liberals allowing half naked cheer girls in cricket matches to encourage the crowd and players and who enjoy everyday viewing of concocted stories of the immature media in collaboration with power mongers of the ruling establishment in every nation.
Those who cannot accept that the Truth is absolute and transcends religion, class, geography and psychology have not missed an opportunity in 3/3 to project a wrong answer to the question of who attacked the Sri Lankan cricketers.
Written by Malarthamil
Malarthamil is a civil engineer and writer-poet inspired by Thirukkural – a classical Tamil poetry that expounds various aspects of life.
Tags: Afghanistan, Cricket, India, ISI, Lahore, Lashkar-e-Taiba, LTTE, mumbai, Pakistan, RAW, South Asia, Sri Lanka, Taliban, terrorist
7 Comments
Criticizes prevailing tendencies at many directions-consumers, govts, Terrorists, Media. And sadly everyone is to be blamed..Wonderful analysis..
Excellent article..Only that it wont be published by any mainstream media..
“The terrorists or non state actors in Pakistan must be happy that they have successfully prevented any more game of cricket in their home ground, particularly considering the fundamentalist ideals having developed dislike for the women coming out in public and seen in Televisions on occasions of a cricket match. This is beyond the imagination of the people in the rest of the world who consider themselves as liberals allowing half naked cheer girls in cricket matches to encourage the crowd and players and who enjoy everyday viewing of concocted stories of the immature media in collaboration with power mongers of the ruling establishment in every nation.”
What the….? I cannot make head or tail of this paragraph.
To cut it short, any militant organization – whatever be the cause, if they are killing innocent people, should be dealt with a firm, iron hand. This is what India needs to do in India, Pak in Pak and Sri Lanka in Sri Lanka. The world community should help in wiping out extremist forces.
Kalki: Your observations on dealign with iron hand is what we need now in India. I guess the author is talking about who should intervene when the state itself involves in killing civilians!
Prakash: In Pak, the civilian government is being taken for a ride by the military and ISI that is allowing extremist forces to roughshod the government. It requires a stronger government founded on a good democratic process. Till such time there will be no respite to what is happening there. I don’t think this current govt is promoting terrorism there – they are just clueless in dealing with it.
Mr. Kalki
The solution to the problem lies in understanding the problem. Due to cultural and political reasons we address the same problem with different yardsticks.
The reason that you cannot make head or tail of that paragraph may be stated in that paragraph itself. What I noted in that paragraph is that the two persons at two extreme ends cannot see each other and cannot understand each other.They have to come closer by heart.
We can not wipe out terrorism just by brushing aside the root cause. When a whole or part of a nation march behind a group, it cannot be termed as a problem of terrorism alone anymore. Terrorism is only a method and not a root cause. Can we call non- violence and Satyagraha one and the same? Non- violence is a philosophy, Sathyagraha is a method. Similarly for a section of people in Afgan and Pak, the Religion is Philosophy , terrorism is a mean or method to protect it. Let us accept that this is a problem to be solved not just by fighting it out with terrorists. So many years have passed after 9/11. Now obama wants to enter into dialogue with certain wings of Taliban.
Terrorism can also be tackled through dialogue. Projecting demons out of terrorists by ignoring the root causes can have a hidden agenda of just protecting the interest of the ruling class in every nation.
Excellent analysis! In a country like Pakistan where anyone can hire a suicide bomber for a fee, it’s very difficult to find out who is responsible. One cannot rule out the involvement of rogue elements in the RAW for this attack. Such elements have taken advantage of the lawlessness in Pakistan in the past to further their nefarious agenda and they have abandoned their foot-soldiers when they were caught. There are some spies of RAW languishing in Pakistani jails because they were simply abandoned by their masters when they were caught.
The article was a very rational analysis of the forces behind the event or the prevailing disturbance in general..a pleasantly thought provoking article…….insightful comments…
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