PAKISTAN: Pakistan suspended four senior policemen yesterday over a security lapse surrounding a grenade attack on a church in the capital on Sunday that killed four worshippers and the assailant, government officials announced.
President Pervez Musharraf decided at high-level security talks to "remove forthwith" Insp Gen Zahir Ahmed, senior Supt Nasir Khan Durrani, his deputy, and a fourth officer in charge of the local police station, according to a government statement.It was not clear whether the officers had been permanently removed.
Mr Musharraf convened the talks after expressing "dismay at the . . . lapse of security", echoing strident criticism of the security failure at the Protestant International Church in the otherwise tightly-guarded diplomatic enclave.
A lone guard was on duty at the church packed with diplomats' families and other expatriates attending Sunday prayers when a man loaded with grenades burst in and hurled them at the congregation, killing the wife and daughter of a US diplomat, a Pakistani woman, and an Afghan man.