AT least five people were killed and six injured yesterday, after gunmen dressed as Pakistani police officers shot their way into a Lahore hospital, where victims of last week’s attack on two Ahmadi mosques were being treated.
The four men fired indiscriminately inside the Jinnah hospital just before midnight on Monday (5am AEST yesterday) in what authorities believe was an attempt to rescue or kill a suspect from Friday’s mosque attacks, who was also receiving treatment.
About 95 people were killed and more than 100 injured in the co-ordinated strikes last week on mosques of the Islamic sect, considered blasphemous in Pakistan.
Dozens of Ahmadi worshippers were in the hospital, along with suspected terrorist Muaz, also known as Amir Moavia, when the gunmen struck.
Acting Lahore police chief Chaudhry Shafiq Ahmed said the four men stormed the intensive care unit on the first floor, where Muaz was recovering, before opening fire on police.
The men took several hospital staff and patients hostage in the 30-minute attack before fleeing the clinic in a car with government plates after police turned off the hospital’s lights to prevent them from identifying Muaz.
One private security guard, three police officers and a woman were killed and up to six others injured in the attack.
“The terrorists came to either kill or free Muaz but they failed,” Superintendent Ahmed said.
Jinnah Hospital medical superintendent Muhammad Hasan said he was in the emergency ward when he heard gunshots.
“We locked ourselves in the ward. The firing continued for about 10 minutes,” he said.
Pakistani newspapers described Muaz as a “significant member of the Punjabi Tehrik-e-Taliban, which claimed responsibility for Friday’s attack, who could provide information about terrorist networks in southern Punjab.
The attack increased pressure on the provincial government to crack down on southern Punjabi militants – a day after Interior Minister Rehman Malik said the central government was preparing for a military operation there.
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