LAHORE: Three men suspected of carrying out the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore in March 2009 were killed in a shootout with police on Sun­day, the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) said.

According to a CTD spokesman, a team of the department was taking four arrested terrorists to the Lakho Dehr area to help it locate a house where they were believed to have made preparations for a bomb attack on Lahore’s Moon Market in 2008. Over 70 people were killed in the explosion.

The police party suddenly came under a barrage of gunfire when it reached a stretch of Ring Road near Mian Town bridge. The policemen retaliated and a shootout ensued.

After the encounter came to an end and the attackers had fled under cover of darkness, the CTD team learnt that the four men who had accompanied it were dead, presumably from bullets fired by the attackers, the spokesman said.

A large haul of weapons were recovered from the site, he added.

According to the CTD, initial investigation suggested that the attackers belonged to banned Lashkar-i-Jhangvi (LJ) and the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakis­tan.

The spokesman identified the dead militants as Zubair alias Naik Mohammad, Abdul Wahab, Adnan Arshad and Ateeq-ur-Rehman, all belonging to LJ.

Ateeq-ur-Rehman was the prime suspect in the Moon Market bombing.

“The three others were directly involved in carrying out the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team,” according to the CTD spokesman.

Eight terrorists had attacked a bus carrying the cricketers near Qadhafi Stadium on March 3, 2009, killing eight policemen and injuring seven players — Mahela Jayawaredene, Kumar Sangakkara, Ajantha Mendis, Thilan Samara­weera, Tharanga Paranavi­tana and Chaminda Vaas.

There were nine suspects in the case, including LeJ chief Malik Ishaq. All of them, except for the three killed on Sunday, had obtained bail. Malik Ishaq, his two sons and 11 accomplices were killed in a similar encounter in Muzaffar­grah in July last year.

Zubair alias Naik Muhammad, resident of Dera Ghazi Khan, was arrested from Madina Colony, Walton Road, Lahore, on June 17, 2009. Later two of his accomplices, Abdul Wahab and Adnan Arshad, were also arrested on the basis of information provided by him.

The Punjab government had included the Sri Lankan cricket team attack case in a list of cases to be sent to military courts for trial. But it could not do so because six suspects had obtained bail. A military court takes up a case only if all the accused are in jail.

Published in Dawn, August 29th, 2016