‘Enough is enough’: Karatekas protest against abusive coach

Wapda coach Shah allegedly assaults male athlete Jawad, leading to players’ boycott

KARACHI:

“I have been beaten up and I have been harassed on regular basis. I do not feel safe. I fear for my life and my family’s safety,” said Karateka Jawad Hazara, as he, along with 17 other players are behind him, while they arranged a protest against Wapda’s coach Shah Muhammad Shah.

Jawad is a multiple gold medal winner for Wapda and has been at national and international events.

Pakistan’s history-makers: first female international female gold medallist Kulsoom Hazara and the 2018 Asian Games bronze medallist Nargis Hazara vehemently protested the abusive Wapda coach as well.

The athletes have been due to compete at the 29th Men’s National and the 15th Women’s National Championships that are scheduled to take place this month.

“This coach has been abusive to us. He calls us with extremely obscene names,” Nargis told The Express Tribune like Jawad did. “The coach has been abusive for an awfully long time, but we all had to take the stand now as he beat up our fellow karateka Jawad. He had been harassing and abusing us women as well as me and we do not want to be coached by him anymore. Enough is enough.”

Meanwhile, Kulsoom added that Shah has been hurling racist and abusive comments to the athletes who belong to the Hazara community of Quetta, who are already persecuted in the country, and have been facing senseless killings and attacks for just existing as a religious and ethnic minority.

“He has been abusing us. He calls us tribal people because we are Hazaras. He calls us names for our ethnicity. He targets us on regular basis, but now we can’t keep training with him anymore. We need this to be resolved,” said Kulsoom.

International karateka and former Asian champion Saadi Abbas has also boycotted the Wapda camp after these attacks on the players.

The players have been training at the Wapda Sports Complex in Lahore from August.

“It has been going on for almost three to two years now. This coach has been bullying the players,” Jawad told The Express Tribune exclusively. “We wanted to take action and we have told the authorities, but it all came down to this incident on September 24.

“Shah along with his brothers and cousins came at me. He first pushed me to the ground and when I tried to get up on my feet, he punched my face, and told his accomplices to beat me up, and they did, till all the other karatekas in the training came to help me.

“Later as I was going to the hostel, they came and started calling me all kinds of names and hurled obscenities at me. He said that he has connections in a terrorist/political group and he will make sure that I will be ruined, and my family will be hurt once I go back to Quetta.

“I feel unsafe. He has threatened me with physical harm. I am raising my voice. We are telling Wapda to do something, but they have ignored the gravity of the situation,” said Jawad.

When The Express Tribune attempted to contact Wapda authorities the phones were not responded.

Jawad, 32, added that now only Wapda Chairman or the ministers can help as everyone has been complicit to the threats he has received by an on-duty coach.

“I want to say that we want to play in peace. We have been winning medals for Wapda and the country, but we want this to be dealt with properly. We should not face this kind of abuse ad face threats to our well-being. We want to serve our country, but this behavior is unacceptable,” said Jawad. “I am requesting the government, the minister, Wapda Chairman to do something and don’t shrug it off or slide it under the rug.”

Meanwhile, Nargis said that even though Wapda authorities told them that there will be a change, there hadn’t been one.

“We have been requesting the authorities for the last four days, but they keep lying to us about it. Nothing is changing. They said the coach will be removed, but he is there, our department is not taking this seriously. We can’t train in this environment,” said Nargis.

With the toxic environment and unperturbed authorities, the athletes are forced to stage a protest.

The Pakistan Karate Federation secretary said that she has sympathies for the players but now the matter is in Wapda’s jurisdiction and the federation cannot intervene.

“I have not received any letter from the players either, but for now this is Wapda’s internal matter, and they should resolve it soon. The federation will act according to its constitution on the matter. I can only say that if this were a national camp, we would have taken the entire responsibility, but this is about the Wapda camp. We must see what Wapda is doing on this situation,” said the PKF secretary.

The name of the players that left the camp after the incident include Baz Muhammad, Muhammad Kashif, Ibrahim, Jawad, Muhammad Ali from NTDC unit. Zafar Iqbal, Muhammad Shahbaz, and Shahbaz Ahmed from FESCO unit. Shabih e Raza and Shahbaz Khan from GEPCO, whereas Naimatullah, Imran Ali and Kulsoom Haraza are from NTDC. Saadi Abbas from GEPCP, Ghulam Ali, Shahida, Naz Gul and Nargis Hazara have also joined the boycott.