‘What a brave nation’ — Bus attack hero hails Lanka team
Eight years after team bus ambush in Lahore, Sri Lanka cricket team to visit Pakistan next week
See what a brave nation they are...That this incident happened to them and still that team is coming to play in our country. The whole of Pakistan should give them protocol (respect) and welcome them very warmly.”
Driver Meher Mohammad Khalil became a hero when militants attacked the Sri Lankan cricket team bus on a busy street in Lahore in 2009, holding his nerve under gunfire to whisk them to safety.
Eight years later he is ready to welcome Sri Lanka back for militancy-wracked Pakistan’s first cricket match against a top international team since that terrible day.
The bus ambush, in which eight people were killed and eight wounded, including seven Sri Lankan players, drove cricket and most other international sports from Pakistan for years.
But security has now improved, and Sri Lanka agreed Monday to go ahead with its visit to Pakistan next week for a Twenty20 match in Lahore, despite fears expressed by some players.
Khalil says the hype surrounding Sri Lanka’s return has sharpened his memories of the assault on the morning of March 3, 2009 as he drove the team to Gaddafi Stadium.
Two elite police vehicles were in front of the bus as he eased on to Liberty roundabout in the heart of Lahore when Pakistani Taliban militants opened fire, spraying bullets along the convoy.
“First I thought it was fireworks for our guest team,” he told AFP, standing in the street where the ambush began.
“Then a man came in front of me (and) fired straight at me with a Kalashnikov ... I realised, it’s not fireworks.”
Shooting and death
The militants shot the drivers first, he said, killing the two in the lead vehicles on the spot.
Khalil saw their vehicles skid one to the left and one to the right, opening a path down the centre — and then he hit the accelerator. “They fired intensely on the vehicle, and also lobbed a hand grenade and fired a rocket,” he said, but both missed.
He does not remember hitting the brakes, he said, until he had driven the bus right inside Gaddafi Stadium.
Khalil was awarded medals and given cash prizes from grateful Pakistani and Sri Lankan officials. Pakistan’s fortunes, meanwhile, have improved, with a dramatic uptick in security in recent years.
The growing confidence led to a visit by minnows Zimbabwe in 2015, the final this March for the Pakistan Super League and last month a World XI side visited for three T20 matches,
Sri Lanka’s return, officials hope, will represent another turning point.
“See what a brave nation they are,” Khalil said, his eyes glittering. “That this incident happened to them and still that team is coming to play in our country. The whole of Pakistan should give them protocol (respect) and welcome them very warmly.”
Meher Mohammad Khalil | Bus driver hero