Malik to lead Pak team to Lanka to probe attack on cricketers

Lahore, Sep 14 (ANI): Pakistan's Interior Minister Rehman Malik will lead a high-level investigation team to Sri Lanka at the end of September to look into links that the Liberty attackers may have had with Tamil Tigers.

A private TV channel reported on Sunday that the team would meet the Sri Lankan leadership and top intelligence officials to share information regarding the attacks.

Malik had earlier said that Sri Lanka had provided some important clues regarding the Liberty attacks to Pakistan and these leads were expected to help identify the attackers as well as their financiers.

Earlier, Pakistan premier Yousuf Raza Gilani had directed the Interior Ministry to send a team of experts to Sri Lanka to probe if elements based there were linked to the terrorist attack on Lankan cricketers in Lahore.

Gilani had asked Malik to "send a team of experts to Sri Lanka in order to exchange information in connection with the investigation about the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team at Lahore," said a statement issued by Gilani's office.

Gilani told reporters that President Mahinda Rajapaksa had given him clues linking elements in Sri Lanka with terrorist attacks in Pakistan, including the strike on the Sri Lankan cricket team on March 3.

Gilani had met Rajapaksa during a recent visit to Libya.

Eight persons were killed and over 20 others, including several Sri Lankan players, injured when terrorists ambushed the team's convoy. (ANI)