Indian Hindu group vow pitch attack against Pakistan cricket team by AFP

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Event:

ICC Champions Trophy 2006/07

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DateLine: 8th October 2006

 

A nationalist Hindu group on Sunday vowed to "go to any extent" to prevent the Pakistan cricket team from playing in the upcoming Champions Trophy tournament.

 

The New Delhi chapter of the right-wing Shiv Sena group said it would not allow Pakistan to play their first league match in the northern city of Mohali on October 25, citing the deadly train attacks in Mumbai in July.

 

"Shiv Sena will not allow Pakistan to play in India after the disclosures made by Mumbai police commissioner about the ISI's involvement in the July 7, Mumbai serial blasts," Sena's Delhi chief Jai Bhagwan said in a statement.

 

Commissioner A.N. Roy last month accused Pakistan's spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), of orchestrating the attacks on the trains that killed 186 people and left 800 others wounded.

 

Pakistan, one of 10 countries in the tournament, is slated to play against New Zealand in Mohali.

 

Bhagwan also warned New Delhi authorities against allowing Pakistan to play in the tournament.

 

"Otherwise our activists in Punjab (state) will be forced to go to any extent to stop the Pakistanis from playing on Indian soil," the firebrand Sena chief said without elaborating.

 

The Mumbai-based Shiv Sena has a Hindu nationalist philosophy and a deep suspicion of Islamic Pakistan.

 

India's two national news agencies, the Press Trust of India and United News of India, reported that the Sena chief had threatened to dig up the Punjab Cricket Association stadium pitch in Mohali in northern Punjab state.

 

Two of Pakistan's three league matches are in Mohali while the third is in Jaipur. The semi-finals will also be held in Mohali and Jaipur and the final will be staged in Mumbai on November 5.

 

The government said it would reinforce security at venues where Pakistan will play.

 

"Mohali could be a red herring and we are keeping a special eye on Jaipur as it is also a stronghold of the (Hindu nationalist) Bharatiya Janata Party," a senior home ministry official told AFP.

 

Bhagwan's supporters dug up the pitch in New Delhi's Ferozeshah Kotla ground in 1999, eight years after damaging the ground of Mumbai's Wankhede Stadium, to protest the Pakistani cricket team's presence in India.

 

India and Pakistan, which fought two of their three wars over Kashmir since 1947, suspended their peace talks after the Mumbai blasts. The negotiations are set to resume on the back of a pledge by Islamabad that it will help New Delhi in its fight against militancy.

(Article: Copyright © 2006 AFP)