Jawed elected unopposed as PBSA president

KARACHI: Jawed Karim, having served Pakistan Billiards & Snooker Association (PBSA) in various capacities for over a decade, has been elected unopposed as the new president for the next four years.

He takes over from Munawwar Hussain Shaikh, who was elected to the top slot in 2016.

According to the details obtained by ‘The News’ here on Wednesday, the election meeting of the PBSA was held a couple of days ago and, unlike the last elections four years ago, all the 12 office-bearers were elected unopposed.

Zulfiqar Ali Ramzi has been re-elected as the Honorary Secretary. Abdul Qadir Memon, Abdul Wahid Qadir and Irfan Moton have been elected as Senior Vice President, Vice President and Honorary Treasurer, respectively.

Those who have been elected as members of the executive committee are Abdul Rashid Lehra, Ali Fayyaz, Muhammad Ashfaq, Amin Bawany, Naveed Kapadia, Nisar Ali Bhagat and Shabbir Hussain Daruwala.

Ali Asghar Valika, having been elected as the chairman of the PBSA by its general body, will continue in that role but it remains to be seen if Alamgir Anwar Shaikh will be retained as the Vice Chairman by the elected set-up.

Jawed Karim, who served the Association as Senior Vice President for the past four years, has become the fifth President of the PBSA, which came into being in 1986 after the dissolution of the Billiards Association of Pakistan (BAP), which was mandated for looking after cue sports of the country previously.

Mazhar Iqbal Puri was the founder President of the PBSA. He relinquished the position in 1988. It was during the era of his successor, Asghar Valika, that snooker reached heights of popularity.

Alamgir Shaikh was elected as the PBSA President in 2008 and he completed two terms of four years each before the mandatory sit-out. After a fiercely fought contest for the first time in history of PBSA, Munawwar Shaikh became the PBSA chief in 2016.