Official protocol: Helicopter ride of PM’s son-in-law disrupts match

Security personnel force players and umpires out of ground to allow VVIPs to land

MANSEHRA:

For the cricketers, it was not rain coming down from the sky to stop their match – it was a chopper.

In the Oghi town, the Mansehra Under-19s was chasing a target of 295 runs made by the Swabi team when police and Frontier Constabulary personnel stormed the ground. At first the players and umpires thought the incursion was some sort of security exercise. But when they were not allowed to resume their match after five hours, the contest had to be called off.

The reason? The prime minister’s son-in-law was coming to town in a helicopter. And the aircraft needed a place to land.

The ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) lawmaker from Mansehra, Capt (retd) Muhammad Safdar who also happens to be the son-in-law of Premier Nawaz Sharif, had gone to his hometown to visit the recently unseated PML-N MPA Wajih uz Zaman Khan. Safdar was accompanied by Federal Religious Affairs Minister Sardar Muhammad Yusuf.

The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) administration and umpires had no option but to stop the Under-19 test match when the security personnel uprooted the stumps and forced the people out of the ground to allow the VVIPs to land, players and police told The Express Tribune on Tuesday.

One of the players Shoaib Khan said the PCB had organised an Under-19 cricket tournament at Oghi cricket ground. The Mansehra team was playing with 10 runs on the board without the loss of a wicket during its second innings when the police stopped them. The Swabi team had amassed a total of 294/6.

Reportedly, the VVIPs went there to convince Khan not to file his nomination papers in the upcoming by-election on June 8. However, the former lawmaker refused to listen to them and filed his form as an independent candidate on the insistence of his electorates.

Accusing Khan of casting his vote in favour of his mother during the recent Senate elections against party policy, the PML-N taking disciplinary action against him had got him unseated last month. The election commission later announced the by-election on the vacated provincial seat.

Sixteen candidates have confirmed their candidature for the by-polls in the constituency, where Khan has won the past four elections but with the support of Minister Yusuf, whose Gujjar tribe constitute the biggest vote bank.

Yusuf in turn has filed the papers of his two sons, Sardar Shahjehan Yusuf and Sardar Liaquat. Former MNA Laiq Muhammad Khan, a brother of Azam Khan Swati, has also filed his papers.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 6^th, 2015.