LAHORE - Timely response and professional attitude of the City polices senior police officers towards the Manawan terrorists attack is being admired highly than the discouraging role played by the top cops a month back when terrorists had ambushed Sri Lankan cricket team at Liberty Chowk. In the Liberty incident, the top police officers including three SPs were held responsible for security lapse before and after the incident, as all the terrorists had fled the scene before their arrival. Poor response of the police officers was highly condemned not only in the police circle but also publicly. Their attitude earned bad name to the Punjab police and the government too putting a question mark on the performance of the police to face future challenges of terrorism. This time the situation was entirely different than the past bitter experiences as some senior police officers including Senior Superintendent Police (SSP) Investigation Zulfiqar Hameed, SSP Police Training Chuhng Maj (R ) Mubashar, SSP Operations Waseem Ahmad Sial, DIG Operations Shahid Iqbal, SP Investigation Civil Lines Dr Haider Ashraf and ASP Gulberg Gul Jawad reached in time with full preparations to take part in the shootout. The experts were of the view that senior police officers presence at the crime scene and professionalism in handling the situation forced the terrorists to retreat otherwise killing spree could have mounted to great numbers as 900 untrained and unarmed policemen were at the mercy of around 10 highly armed terrorists for some hours. SSP Investigation Zulfiqar Hameed, ASP Gulberg Gul Jawad, four gunmen and wireless operator had entered the premises of the Police Training Centre at 9:15am when the gun battle and terror was at its peak. The SSP Investigation opened fire on the armed men using Beretta 9mm pistol while the other policemen with heavy official guns. ASP Gulberg Gul Jawad received bullet injuries when the terrorists found him armed with a gun near a corridor inside the building and resorted to unprovoked firing on him. The policemen under the supervision of SSP Investigation remained present in the training centre from 9:00am till the completion of commando operation at around 4:00pm. When contacted, the SSP Investigation said that at around 11:30 am they had trapped in a very dangerous situation when both the terrorists from inside and the law enforcement agencies from outside the building started firing on them. The police officials who were taking positions outside the boundary walls were unaware about their presence in the building. He immediately informed the inspector general police about his position inside the building and requested to bar the commandos not to fire on them. The SSP said some minutes later, he faced another critical situation when the terrorists who had made 10 under training-policemen hostage in a room and forced them to stand on the rooftop water tank. This was very dangerous and merciless trick of the terrorists to deceive the police commandos who were engaged in shootout with them. The commandos were about to hit the policemen when the SSP immediately intervened and again informed the top police officers outside the training centre about the situation. The commandos later stopped firing towards the policemen standing on the water tank. Zulfiqar Hameed remained in contact with the commandos the whole day by providing them useful information about the positions of the terrorists. He also helped the commandos for their safe entry in the police training centre and played key role in the successful operation. Similarly, SSP Major (r) Mubashar entered the building on armoured personnel carriers (APCs) several times and shifted the injured policemen and the dead bodies amid massive firing.