A Pakistani minister said yesterday that a suicide bomber was responsible for an explosion outside Lahore’s Gaddafi Stadium that killed two people during a Pakistan-Zimbabwe cricket match, despite police insisting the explosion was accidental.
Friday’s incident, which triggered a news blackout in Pakistani media, came despite heavy security for the country’s first cricket series on home soil since an attack on a Sri Lanka team bus in March 2009.
“The suicide bomber failed to enter the stadium due to the bravery of our police,” Pakistani Minister of Information Pervez Rashid told private broadcaster Geo.
Photo: Reuters
The attack took place about 1.5km from the venue at “the outer security cordon of the stadium,” Rashid said, adding that it did not affect the match.
Security has been ratcheted up for the series with about 4,000 policemen guarding the stadium itself and a further 2,000 along the route from the Zimbabwe team hotel to the venue.
The series, comprised of two Twenty20 matches and three one-day internationals, is the first since the 2009 attack on the Sri Lanka team left eight people dead.
Despite Rashid’s comments, Lahore police insisted that the incident was an “accidental blast” caused by an auto rickshaw’s gas cylinder exploding.
“It was a gas cylinder explosion and not a terrorist act,” a police spokesman told reporters.
He said one policeman and the rickshaw driver died.
Police had earlier said the blast was a transformer explosion.
The news was blacked out in Pakistani media until the conclusion of the match in a bid to prevent panic, a decision Rashid praised in his remarks to Geo.
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