Pakistan deploying 3,000 police for England cricketers by AFP

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Event:

England in Pakistan 2005/06

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DateLine: 10th November 2005

 

Pakistan will deploy 3,000 policemen and a team of sniffer dogs to ensure tight security for England's cricketers during the first Test in Multan.

 

Uniformed and plainclothes police officers will cordon off the stadium in the central city -- where a car bomb killed 40 people in October 2004 -- for all five days of the game, which starts Saturday.

 

"We have made arrangements for tight security round the clock," Munir Ahmed Chishtie, head of Multan's police security team, told reporters.

 

England agreed to the tour only after the Pakistani government assured them a level of security normally only reserved for heads of state. Even then they refused to play a Test in the volatile southern city of Karachi.

 

Michael Vaughan's men arrived in Multan on Wednesday morning but had to wait for a practice session at the stadium until the sniffer dogs and security personnel had given the ground the all-clear.

 

"We don't want to take any risks. These dogs will sniff the whole stadium before play starts on every day of the Test," Chishtie said.

 

The road to the team's five-star hotel will be blocked for ordinary traffic until they leave the city.

 

A number of foreign teams have refused to tour Pakistan because of security concerns following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States and the invasion of neighbouring Afghanistan.

 

Australia and the West Indies refused to play a series in Pakistan over security fears and the home team was forced to play both series on neutral venues in 2002.

 

New Zealand, who cancelled their Pakistan tour a week after September 11, had to cut short their revised tour after a bomb outside their team hotel in Karachi left 14 people dead, including 11 French naval staff, in May 2002.

 

Since then South Africa and New Zealand refused to play at all in the southern port city. India agreed only to a one-day match last year on their first tour to Pakistan since 1989.

 

Pakistani cricket authorities hope the country's image will improve after hosting England, the first non-Asian team to play a full series in the country for five years.

(Article: Copyright © 2005 AFP)