LAHORE, Pakistan (Reuters) – Five members of the Sri Lankan cricket team were wounded when around a dozen gunmen attacked their bus as it drove under police escort on Tuesday to a stadium in the Pakistani city of Lahore, officials said.
Lahore Police chief Habib-ur-Rehman said five police were killed in the attack by unidentified gunmen who fired AK 47s and rockets and hurled grenades at the bus as it slowed at a traffic circle near the 60,000-seater Gaddafi stadium.
"Police are chasing the terrorists," he said. "They appeared to be trained men."
Punjab Governor Salman Taseer told reporters the assailants had been surrounded after being chased into a nearby commercial and shopping area.
"We were very fortunate to escape serious injury," a Sri Lankan player, who did not want to be identified, told Reuters by telephone.
Sri Lanka's sports minister said five players and an assistant coach were wounded, two of whom were being treated in hospital.
It was unclear whether injuries were caused by bullets, shrapnel or flying shards of glass.
The attack had echoes of one on the Indian city of Mumbai last November, which led to the Indian cricket team cancelling its planned tour of Pakistan.
"One thing I want to say it's the same pattern, the same terrorists who attacked Mumbai," said Governor Taseer.
India blamed that attack on Pakistan-trained militants and the incident sharply raised tension between the two nuclear-armed neighbors.
The group blamed by India, Lashkar-e-Taiba, came from Pakistan's Punjab province, whose capital is Lahore.
Pakistani stocks were down over 2.47 percent in early trade on Tuesday following the attack on the cricket team bus.
The Karachi Stock Exchange benchmark 100-share index was 2.47 percent, or 140.22 points, lower at 5,541.022 on turnover of 16.8 million shares by 10:40 a.m. local time (12:40 a.m. EST).
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