Plot to take team hostage and ask for Lakhvis release: report

The News daily reported that investigators were trying to ascertain whether the attack was an attempt by the Lashkar-e-Toiba to hijack the bus carrying the cricketers to bargain for the release of Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi,arrested over the Mumbai attacks.

Investigators felt there was evidence that the attack was a Lashkar operation. The News said if the players were taken hostage,the militants would have demanded safe passage to Pakistans tribal areas for Lakhvi and others Zarar Shah,Abu al Qama and Hamad Amin Sadiq currently in Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi,awaiting trial.

Commissioner Khusro Pervaiz told Dawn News that the Lahore gunmen ought to have been taken on by back-up police support which didnt show up. All convoys are provided outer cordons,but in this case the outer cordon did not respond,or it was not enough. The vehicles used for escorting the Sri Lankan convoy were not adequate, he said.

The Pakistan government had promised the Sri Lankan team Presidential-level security when it agreed to tour the country after several other foreign teams had refused. But Pervaiz said they were given only VVIP-level security.

Pakistani security forces also came under sharp attack from former President Pervez Musharraf for not reacting swiftly and taking the terrorists head-on.

If this was the elite force,I would expect them to have shot down those people who attacked (the cricket team)… our reaction should have been much better, Musharraf told reporters. The reaction (and) their training should be of a level that if anybody shoots towards something that they are guarding,in less than three seconds they should shoot the men down.

Musharraf said the public too should have reacted to the attack. This was not a place which was secluded. There were buildings and traffic around… there should have been a brave man who should have taken his car and charged those people who were running around and brought them under the car. He said people in nearby buildings who had weapons should have also taken on the terrorists.

On Wednesday,CCTV footage aired by Geo TV showed some of the suspected terrorists ambling away after the attack.

One of the five suspects,a resident of Rehmanpura,had a photograph of one of the attackers,Dawn newspaper quoted sources as saying. The suspects told police the attackers stayed in Lahore for a month to plan the assault.

Police are also trying to trace the persons whose phone numbers were found on the SIM of the mobile phone left behind by the terrorists. Babar Shahzad,one of the suspects,had reportedly purchased one of the SIMs used by the terrorists.

Shahzad and a teenager named Dilawar Hussain were arrested from a village at Rahimyar Khan in southern Punjab. The three other suspects were detained in Lahore. These five suspects were traced after police found a bag with a mobile phone that was thrown by the terrorists following the attack.