By IANS,
Islamabad: Shaken by a rash of suicide bombings across Pakistan, the country’s security agencies have asked the federal and provincial governments to postpone the March 25-31 National Games at Peshawar. Adequate security cannot be ensured for the games, the agencies have said.
In a report to the federal and provincial governments, the security agencies said that terrorist activates have increased in different areas of the country in the last couple of days and terrorists could hit Islamabad and Peshawar after Karachi and Lahore, Online news agency reported, quoting sources.
Hundreds of athletes are likely to participate in the 31st National Games.
The report said there were intelligence inputs that terrorists could also hit the athletes and in the current circumstances, adequate security cannot be provided to them.
Pakistan has been rocked by a series of terror attacks since the military launched a massive operation against Taliban strongholds in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in June last year. Hundreds of people have died in these attacks.
In the last two days alone, 71 people have been killed in suicide bombings in the Swat Valley in the NWFP and in Lahore.
On Saturday, a bomber targeted a security checkpost in the Swat Valley’s Mingora town, killing at least 14 people and wounding 52.
A day earlier, twin blasts claimed 57 lives in Lahore and injured 136. Late on Friday, seven low-intensity blasts spread panic in Lahore and kept the police on their toes for over eight hours.
In the most horrendous of these bombings, 177 people, including a large number of women and children, were killed Oct 28, 2009 in a suicide attack at a crowded market in Peshawar, the NWFP capital.