IT HAD started as an ordinary day at the police school in Lahore, with a parade of the cadets at the front of the facility. But, at about 7.30am, gunmen jumped over the low perimeter wall, throwing grenades at the recruits and firing indiscriminately. The 800 cadets, all unarmed, scattered.
“They came over [the wall] like guerrillas, wearing scarves over their faces. They came from three different points. It was a heavy attack, with grenades,” said trainee Omar Butt (22). “We crawled out [of the compound] on our elbows.”
Others, who could not get out of the school, hid on the roof, in the laundry room, anywhere they could find refuge. On the first floor, in the sleeping quarters, Gul Hussain (21) simply lay on a mattress, and covered himself with a sheet, for about two hours, until he was rescued.
“They were chanting slogans, ‘God is great’, and other things. I lay there and just didn’t move,” he said.
By mid-afternoon, after an eight-hour battle with the terrorists, commandos emerged on the roof of the building, firing into the air, this time in victory. It was perhaps the first time in the campaign of violence that is tearing Pakistan apart, that the security forces had inflicted a defeat, of sorts, on the extremists.
The militants seem to be able to attack at will across the country but a bloodbath was averted in a combined police, paramilitary and army fightback. The authorities caught at least one of the militants alive, as he was trying to flee.
But it was another security lapse that allowed the terrorists into the training centre with such ease. In the siege that followed at least 11 were killed, including eight police recruits, and 95 police were injured. Dozens of police trainees were held hostage by the militants, who fought an intense gun battle with the security forces.
The attack confirmed how the war inside Pakistan has moved decisively into the heart of the country, Punjab province and its regional capital, Lahore, away from the northwest area bordering Afghanistan where most of the blood used to be shed.
Earlier this month, terrorists attacked the visiting Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore. March has also seen suicide bomb attacks in the capital, Islamabad, and the garrison Punjabi city of Rawalpindi.
On the top floor of the police school yesterday was evidence of the attackers’ fanaticism. As the security forces fought their way into the building, securing the ground floor and then the first floor, militants moved upwards but there was nowhere to go after the second storey.
Rather than be taken alive, they blew themselves up. A severed head lay on the floor, blown off by the force of the detonation of the man’s suicide vest. But his bearded face was still largely intact. The pillar behind it was splattered in blood. Most of his body was found about two metres away.
According to the authorities, two other terrorists also blew themselves up, but last night it remained a mystery what happened to the majority of the gunmen. Witnesses said that between eight and 14 militants attacked the police school, but perhaps four died and one was arrested.
The attackers were wearing police uniforms and last night the authorities ordered that none of the injured be allowed to leave hospital, as “suspects could be among them”. – (Guardian service)