Pakistan bus attack driver lauds return of Sri Lankan cricketers

Driver Meher Muhammad 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 Pakistan´s first cricket match against a top international team since that terrible day, a report in Pakistan Today claimed.

Pic courtesy Pakistan Today

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 T20 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 media agencies, 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.”

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.

Fled the country

He does not remember hitting the brakes, he said, until he had driven the bus right inside Gaddafi Stadium. A security cordon was thrown up and he and the players stayed there until a military helicopter airlifted them right out from its grassy pitch.

In the harrowing aftermath, Khalil was awarded medals and given cash prizes from grateful Pakistani and Sri Lankan officials. However, Khalil´s newfound VIP status just made him a target, he feared, and by the end of the year he had fled the country, first to Morocco then to South Africa.

By 2013, however, he had returned to Pakistan, and once more drives a bus in Lahore. The country´s fortunes, meanwhile, have improved, with a dramatic uptick in security in recent years.

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.”

Sri Lankan officials have said they agreed to the game after assessments by Sri Lankan and Pakistan authorities, independent security experts and the ICC.

Khalil, however, urged caution, calling for “foolproof security” for all foreign players in Pakistan.