LAHORE, Pakistan, June 1 (Reuters) – At least three gunmen attacked a hospital in Pakistan’s eastern city of Lahore on Tuesday, killing 12 people and holding several hostage, a senior doctor told Reuters.
“They barged into the hospital building and opened indiscriminate fire,” said Javed Ikram, Chief Executive of Jinnah hospital.
He said at least 12 people were killed in the firing while some had been held hostage.
Dozens of people wounded in Friday’s attacks on two mosques of a minority religious community in the city were being treated in the hospital, which is a major institution in the city. More than 80 people were killed in those attacks.
“We have surrounded the hospital and an operation is underway,” senior city government official, Sajjad Bhutta, said.
A witness told Reuters that a police commando team had stormed into the hospital.
One hospital official, who declined to be identified, said the gunmen killed one of the attackers from Friday’s assault who was being treated in the Intensive Care Unit. (Reporting by Mubasher Bukhari in Lahore, and Kamran Haider and Zeeshan Haider in Islamabad; Editing by Jon Boyle and Chris Allbritton)
Did Shivraj Patil ask Dikshit to delay Afzal Guru’s hanging?
New Delhi, June 6 (IANS) Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit Sunday stopped short of denying that former home minister Shivraj Patil had asked her government to delay a decision on parliament attack convict Afzal Guru’s hanging.
‘May be what you are thinking is true,’ Dikshit told a news channel when asked if Patil had asked her to keep the matter pending even if the home ministry sends frequent reminders.
Asked if there was any political pressure on the issue, the chief minister again refused a direct reply and said: ‘Political pressure was there and wasn’t there. I cannot say anything more on this.’
Dikshit was replying to questions on a show on Aaj Tak channel.
The city government was sitting over Guru’s file for almost four years and had got 16 reminders from the home ministry on the issue. It replied to the latest reminder in May, saying the matter was under ‘active consideration’.
The Delhi government while sending its comment on Guru’s death sentence May 19 had supported the hanging, but expressed apprehension that law and order could be ‘disturbed’ in the wake of his execution.
Delhi Lieutenant Governor Tejendra Khanna Friday forwarded the parliament attack convict’s mercy petition file to the home ministry.
Khanna, to whom the file was rushed May 19 by the chief minister’s office, sent it to the ministry after ‘carefully studying’ it and giving his ‘personal comments’, a source in the Raj Bhavan told IANS.
The source said that the Supreme Court judgment, confirming Guru’s conviction and death sentence for masterminding the terror attack on parliament Dec 13, 2001 has not been opposed in the file sent to the home ministry.
Guru, a resident of Sopore town in the Kashmir Valley, was found guilty of plotting the attack and was sentenced to death by a trial court in December 2002. The Delhi High Court confirmed the death penalty in October 2003.
The Supreme Court also upheld the capital punishment given to him for his role in the attack. Guru’s wife Tabassum filed a mercy petition before the president after the apex court’s verdict.
As per the laid down procedure, the president sought the home ministry’s views on the mercy petition in 2005.
The procedure on mercy petition also requires the home ministry to seek comments of the state government in whose jurisdiction the crime, for which the death penalty is awarded to the convict, has been committed.