Pakistan cricket security came under scrutiny after the attack on Sri Lankan cricket team. (File Photo)
Four of the 10 terrorists allegedly involved in the 2009 attack on the visiting Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore were killed in a shootout with police, Pakistani officials said today.
The attack on a convoy of the Sri Lankan team had injured six players and killed six policemen and two civilians. The Pakistani Taliban and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, an affiliated terrorist group, claimed the attack.
The encounter with the Pakistan police took place late on Saturday on the edge of Lahore when other unknown gunmen tried to break the terrorists out of police custody, a counterterrorism official said. Another senior official confirmed the account. Both spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing retribution.
Pakistan has stepped up its fight against terrorist groups over the past two years, including with a military offensive in North Waziristan, a tribal region near the Afghan border and longtime stronghold of al-Qaida and other terrorists.
Today, security forces raided a religious seminary on the outskirts of the southwestern city of Quetta, where a suicide bomber killed more than 70 people earlier this month, and sealed it when they found nearly 100 illegal Afghan immigrants residing there, provincial government spokesman Anwarul Haq said.
Other such raids netted another 228 Afghans, said paramilitary spokesman Khan Wasey. It was unclear if the raids were linked to terrorism suspicions.
Quetta is the capital of the southwestern Baluchistan province. Six alleged recruiters for al-Qaida and the ISIS have been arrested in the province in recent days, according to provincial home minister Sarfaz Bugti.