ASF refuses to give Pakistan hosting rights

KARACHI: Pakistan’s security situation was discussed at length at the Annual General Meeting of Asian Squash Federation (ASF) held recently in Malaysia.
It has been learnt that the house showed grave concerns on the series of terrorist activities, especially an explosion inside an Imambargah in Shikarpur district on January 30, which killed at least 61 people, depriving Pakistan any chance of hosting an Asian-level event till 2017.
“We wrote to the ASF to award us the 2016 edition of Asian junior team championships since they annulled our hosting rights of the same event for 2015 due to the attack at Karachi Airport by terrorists in June last year but the ASF general body refused,” said Pakistan Squash Federation (PSF) secretary Amir Nawaz while talking to ‘The News’.
He added that the PSF had been hopeful of securing the hosting rights but the ASF general body did not seem satisfied.
“The house showed concerns over the volatile security situation. They talked about the recent attack which killed 61 people,” added Amir.
He said the general body did not consider their request for awarding the championships’ 2016 edition, which would most likely go to Hong Kong.
“We are now focusing on Professional Squash Association events with foreign participation. Two events carrying prize purse of $25,000 with foreign participation will be held in Islamabad in the last quarter of the year,” added Amir.
On June 8 last year, 10 militants armed with automatic weapons and suicide vests attacked the Jinnah International Airport.
The attack was thwarted by Army and other forces. It worried the members of ASF and the Executive Committee of ASF conducted a survey, asking the member nations if they were ready to participate in the championships. Out of the 25 member nations, 13 straight away refused to send their teams to Pakistan, compelling ASF to abort this championship.