Olympics: Pakistan slams visa scam claims
Pakistani sports officials rubbished claims by a British newspaper to have uncovered a visa scam that could have allowed potential terrorists into the Olympic Village.
The Sun tabloid said it had busted a racket involving a politician in Lahore that could have given access to the London Games as part of the Pakistani contingent in return for Rs1million. Pakistan’s Olympic chef de mission Aqil Shah dismissed the claims.
“These are baseless reports,” said Shah. “This is an attempt to malign Pakistan. Even if someone gets a passport he cannot enter the Olympic Village without an Olympic accreditation card. Hockey has at least six officials which are under the rules and then we have physicians and other coaches who are genuine members of Pakistan’s contingent.”
Pakistan Olympic Association chief Arif Hasan was already in London and discussing the matter with the Pakistan High Commission, added Shah.
Never believed I’d get here: Chambers
Controversial British sprinter Dwain Chambers said he feels like a gold medal-winner already as he prepares to return to Olympics despite an earlier drug ban.
The 34-year-old 100m runner said it was a ‘dream come true’ to compete in London, after being fitted for his Games kit at the British athletics team’s base in central England.
“It has been a long time since the Olympic Games in Sydney in 2000 and I have always said I never believed I would get here,” said Chambers. “Today has just been a dream come true for me. A goal was to get here, but that wasn’t a goal open to me. Just to be in the atmosphere of the Games in London is absolutely fantastic. To be able to go out there in front of a home crowd and experience that Olympic atmosphere to me is like a gold medal to me.”
Published in The Express Tribune, July 24th, 2012.
COMMENTS (13)
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Here we go round the mulberry bush, again!.
A two bit tabloid made a flaw in our passport system a global Armageddon and we like the disciples of west is wonderful start cursing our genealogy, amazing.
I am not saying that our current system is perfect but it far better than the previous one. I’ve been to UK in near past and I know exactly how eagerly the sizeable proportion of Brits are ready to sell each and everything to the highest bidder & how easily they are cutting the corners of the system.
No dis-respect intended to any race or nationality but the Poles, Moldovans, Romanians, Nigerians etc etc are all wreaking havoc in the UK but the spotlight is only Pak. Maybe we are special, just maybe.
This is a serious allegation.
The report in "the sun" also takes the name of the politician who was involved
I think Pakistani media should get into the depth of this, instead of simply going "yeh mulk ko badnaam karney ki saazish hei"
Call all of thm back. That would save some face. We have lost it all, so lets not bother.
sue this stupid newspaper. completely lost its credibility. does nothing better than sensationalize rubbish, make up crap and try to attack soft targets. riding off the back of one or two journalistic sleuth stories such as bringing those idiotic cricketers down, but this is just desperate racism of a soft target. pathetic. the sun should be banned for good.
so India is responsible- in partnership with Yahoodi agents.
This must be a R&AW propaganda to malign Pakistan Olympic team so as to break their concentration....ha ha ha
Yes. Of course.
"The sun was paid 100,000 GBP by RAW to malign Pakistan" - Zaid Hamid
Yes please continue to live in denial. Everyone else is after us as they have nothing else to do.
Yes please continue to live in denial. Everyone else is after us as they have nothing else to do.
"Pakistan Olympic Association chief Arif Hasan was already in London and discussing the matter with the Pakistan High Commission, added Shah." +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ What does this have to do with the Pakistan High Commission? PS The High Commissioner is in any case too sick to travel to Pakistan:)
If this is baseless report, then i suggest Pakistani Olympic Association should immediately sue the newspaper for deflamation and libel. After all its not an ordinary newspaper ! Its got the highest circulation and its owned by News Corp, namely a certain Mr Murdoch ! So they are not broke or likely to be !
then why did Rehman Malik form a JIT ?