Murali: I didn't say terrorists were tipped off
I’ve just interviewed Sri Lanka’s top spin bowler, Muttiah Muralitharan, about a story that’s doing the rounds. Conspiracy? Collusion with terrorists? He says it’s just a load of spin.
Was the attack on the Sri Lanka test team and the umpires an inside job? Quite an allegation – but that’s what’s been suggested.
The Pakistan captain, Younus Khan told a news conference yesterday: “Thank God we decided to leave our hotel five minutes after the Sri Lankans.” He put it down to good fortune.
But eyebrows have been raised over this unexplained five-minute delay between the departure from the Pearl Continental Hotel of the Sri Lankan team bus and the Pakistan team bus. There have been suggestions of a tip-off about timing and security arrangements.
It’s true that the Sri Lankans and the umpires left on schedule at 8.30 on Tuesday morning, and that Younus Khan’s Pakistan team was several minutes behind. It’s also true that the attackers, apparently riding on autorickshaws, managed to break onto the Alfalah roundabout from four separate directions, despite armed police having apparently closed off the roads.
One of the Australian umpires arrived home and angrily stirred the cauldron, asking why they’d been abandoned. “I don’t have any answers to these questions,” he said.
Muttiah Muralitharan: Reuters
The legendary Sri Lankan bowler – and highest-ever test wicket-taker – Muttiah Muralitharan, was asked on Australian radio station FiveAA about the departure times: “We divided into two,” he told them. “Maybe they knew the information for the right time.”
I called Murali, as he’s known, to find out who he meant by “they”.
Relieved to be back home in the safety of Sri Lanka, the Tamil spin bowler turned out to be rather alarmed by the spin on his comments.
“They got it wrong!” he told me. “I didn’t say it like that. I didn’t say at all that this was a tip-off. I said the terrorists would have got information when the bus was leaving. They would have monitored, they have walkie-talkies… There is no tip-off from inside or anything.”
“Is there any suspicion on your part,” I asked, “that there may have been any conspiracy over timing or security arrangements?”
“No, I don’t have any suspicion,” he said. “The only thing is that the security was not enough. Out of 12 [police] men, six died on the spot, four were injured. And there was no one to shoot back at the terrorists. They were freely shooting everyone. The backup was not there. That is the biggest problem we had.”
“And there were no police or guns on your team bus?” I asked.
“No. We didn’t have anyone on the bus.”
“Would you normally have had people on the bus?”
“Sometimes we had some people on the one-day tours. In the Asia Cup we had a few… in the test tour in Karachi, we had a few. But in Lahore we didn’t have because they were all relaxed. They thought ‘We are safe, nobody’s going to hit,’ – that’s what they would have thought”.
Murali says his friend, the Pakistan captain Younus Khan, told him that because his side was batting on Tuesday, they’d informed their manager that they’d leave a few minutes later. Nothing unusual or suspicous in that, he said.
He confirmed the Sri Lankan team had expressed fears about their safety. “We were assured by the Pakistan foreign minister and the embassy that we’d have VIP security,” he said. “We don’t know if what we had was VIP security – but it wasn’t good enough to save us, unfortunately.”
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