EVEN our most esteemed guests are no longer safe in this country. Assured of security reserved for VVIPs, Sri Lanka chose to play in Pakistan when the cricketing world at large saw us as a pariah state. We had stood by Sri Lanka in the past and they repaid us in the same coin. They chose to play in a country whose very mention invokes images of the most gruesome violence imaginable in the minds of most foreigners. Many in the Sri Lankan team are probably regretting that decision after the deadly attack in Lahore yesterday that left a number of policemen dead and injured at least four Sri Lankan cricketers. Two of them suffered bullet wounds but thankfully they are said to be out of danger. This paper has consistently maintained that foreign cricket teams should visit Pakistan. Tuesday`s tragic events have perhaps confirmed that the sides that refused to tour were possibly guilty only of prescience tinged with paranoia.

By no stretch of the imagination can a Pakistani militant or terrorist organisation bear a grudge against Sri Lanka, let alone its cricketers. The context, then, suggests that the attack was carried out by internal or external elements who wish to either destabilise the Pakistan government or to further isolate it internationally. Whose agenda does this attack fit, is the question that needs to be asked, probed and answered. The dozen or so people who attacked the Sri Lankan team bus with hand grenades, at least one RPG and endless rounds of gunfire were no ordinary terrorists. The footage shows all too clearly that this was an attack carried out by individuals who have received highly sophisticated combat training. Their approach was not dissimilar to that adopted by the Mumbai gunmen. Perhaps the same organisation is to blame for both tragedies.

With all due respect to the policemen who died in the half-hour gun battle in which they tried valiantly and successfully to save the Sri Lankans, a security lapse did occur, officialdom`s denials notwithstanding. This aspect of the story must be investigated fully. Tuesday`s assault also highlights the folly of negotiating with those bent on destroying our way of life. The peace deal, or capitulation, in Swat has been described by officialdom as a regional solution to a regional problem. This does not wash, it cannot fly. Militancy and terrorism are national problems that are not confined to a specific region. The obscurantists must be tackled head-on if we are to entertain any hope of redemption. If the state resorts to negotiating with militants from a position of weakness, what we will get is disaster, across the board. The politicians need to wake up, bury the hatchet in the national good and rout the real enemy.