Eye Witness report drafted at 10:30am by Farooq Tariq the Spokesperson Labour Party Pakistan

I am writing this at 10am on 30 March 2009.

As I arrived back from my usual morning walk around 7am, a massive round of firing was heard at my place. I asked my partner Shahnaz, if she noticed that, she said maybe, a routine matter and such incident of firing is taking place almost daily. Then another round of firing started, I told her this is very unusual. It went on for some time.

I live near Jallo Park, and not for from G T Road that leads to Wahgha border. Manawan Police Training Center is on this GT Road and just opposite to our place, around a kilometer away.

I turned to the television, there was not any mention of this firing, but the firing was still going on. Around 7.30am, some private television stations started telling that firing and some blast is heard at Manawan Police Training center and no more details[. . ]

Read the rest of this entry. .

I was in classroom when we heard the loud sound of those bloody shots, we got curious making ideas about what really happened and one of my friends passed on a joke and we carried on. But I was sensing that something is wrong and something terrible has happened. And Just after 5 minutes, I received an SMS from friend saying that few terrorists have attacked the Sri Lankan team bus and the Police squad. Just then, A friend of mine also got a phone call from his relative, and he was in the middle of the call when he shouted loudly about the incident.

Everyone including our instructor got scared and our instructor was kind enough to let us go.  My university is just near Liberty, the attack place, we could see the traffic jam and a panic kinda situation on the road outside my university. Rumors kept on coming from here and there stating that there is a huge life loss in this attack, few said that Sri Lankans are also among the casualties. I immediately ran to the Internet lab, hoping to watch the live TV streams about what really happened. I was shocked to see that bloody fight between terrorists and the Police, as SAMAA TV were airing the footage of the attack.

My heart got relaxed to know that Sri Lankans are safe, but at the same time, my heart started mourning to hear about the casualities of local Policemen. I witnessed the panic situation among the students and personnel of our university. I happened to talk to the security guard at the gate of our university, he told me that 2 of the terrorists have just passed by the road outside our university. He told that they were carrying bads and weapons. He further said that they have went towards the Ferdous Market that was later confirmed by the news channels.

I started receiving SMSes, phonecalls inquiring about me and telling me to stay safe as the attackers are still on the move. I had an urge to go and see the attack place but I couldn’t as the security officials had blocked the traffic.

I spent 3 hours in the university after the incident as I had classes to attend. In those 3 hours I witnessed panic and scary situation of the students. Various of them were saying that there is going to be no more cricket in Pakistan, this is the bloody incident of the history. Just after a while, we saw the search helicopters kept flying in the entire area for quite a while and that caused even more tension among the students.

Somehow, I managed to come home. It took me some effort because no Rickshaw was willing to travel in that situation. After reaching home, I immediately started surfing web, listening to mainstream media and the blogosphere to keep myself updated.

And with the residents of Lahore I met today, all of them condemned the attacks in strong words. Their reaction was quite natural; apologatic and scary. The place of the incident, as reported by news channels and few of my friends who happened to pass by there, is quite empty, only Policemen, bomb disposal squad and news reporters are there.

The current atmosphere of the city is still sad and scary. As Pakistan has associated the attacks towards India, this is what people have already been expecting. And in the blogosphere, there are various reports about the involvement of RAW, the Indian Intelligence Agency, behind the attack, trying to destabilize Pakistan. Bloggers have also apologized to the Sri Lankans about what happened today.