by Shehzad Ghias

Created on: March 10, 2009   Last Updated: March 20, 2009

It is important to never look at an incident in isolation; the fact of the matter is terrorists shot at the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore, Pakistan. However, it is not enough to disregard the incident, either as a routine in a terror struck politically unstable country nor as an act of a group of extremists with little regard to human life. These explanations appear to be too simple for an incident of this nature. Other facts associated with the incident are that the Punjab Government was disposed of a couple of days before the incident throwing public agencies in disarray, going back a little more, in the aftermath of the Mumbai Terrorist attacks all fingers were pointed towards Pakistan immediately without any proof or evidence which resulted in both the countries being at the brink of war. The intelligence agencies of both countries have been allegedly involved in cross border terrorism and although Pakistan has not officially blamed anyone so far so the incident and hint of a strategic conspiracy cannot be disregarded with any certainty. The facts that the rocket launcher missed the bus and the grenade never went off seem highly skeptical. The most shocking fact is that none of the perpetrators were actually captured and the presence of police was minimal even though there is a police station 200 yards away from where the incident took place.

The implications of the incident for foreign teams are clear, Pakistan is not considered a country safe enough for touring teams to visit. It is unlikely that the country will see any international cricket anytime soon. The World Cup scheduled to take place in the region in 2011 is also a major doubt at this stage. What is significant at this stage is such incidents of terror have taken place all over the world after September 11th but this particular occurrence highlighted the ever present terror threat by targeting sportsmen. Sports has been considered a means to heal relationships between countries and cricket brought the nations of India and Pakistan together in the past but now people involved in the sport find themselves at the heart of terrorism. Clearly, the sport is not worth putting the lives of people at risk. If Pakistan is isolated, it will sink deeper into the dark abyss of terrorism and the motive of these terrorists will be realized. At this dark stage the country needs the support of foreign countries to help it combat terrorism and achieve some sort of stability in the long run. The incident will forever be ingrained in the history of the country as a dark moment but it is important to move on and look at the broader issues to eliminate all incidents of this nature in the future rather focusing at the incident in isolation.

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