Kaif terms cameraman incident as ‘misunderstanding’

“Everybody makes mistakes in life. There was some misunderstanding and things got out of control,” Kaif, the Uttar Pradesh captain said.

Asked what would happen to the FIR which was registered on Thursday against Kaif, Singh said, “it still stand as of now, though we will take legal view on how to proceed next.”

The photographer of the Hindi daily tried to take Kaif’s picture while he was coming out of a cinema hall Wednesday night and was roughed up.

Kaif said he was not able to sleep for the whole night after the incident and could not practice properly at the PCA stadium in Mohali, where his team will take on Punjab in a Ranji encounter on Friday.

“As a player, I had come here to play the match. I had never thought I would have to come to police station and get chased by the media,” Kaif said on Thursday evening at Sector 36 police station.

Asked to comment on Wednesday night’s incident, he said he wants to put it behind as a ‘bad experience’ of his life from which he had learnt a lesson.

“My job is to play cricket tomorrow. I have to worry about my own performance and that of my team and I want to focus on that,” Kaif said.

Asked if he would outrightly apologise to the photographer of the Hindi daily, Kaif said, “the way you (media) showed breaking news stories (on channels), it hurt me and my family members, who kept ringing me up through the night. You should see both sides (of the issue)”.

Kaif was coming out after watching the evening show of Shah Rukh Khan-starrer Om Shanti Om at Picadilly theatre on Wednesday night when the cameraman of a Hindi daily tried to click him.

An angry Kaif allegedly manhandled the photographer and also got into a scuffle with another colleague of the photographer who tried to intervene.

The mediapersons then picketed Sector 34 police station where the cinema hall is situated and later assembled outside the hotel where Kaif and his teammates were putting up, demanding that a case of assault be registered against the cricketer.

The media persons waited outside his hotel for couple of hours but when Kaif did not apologise, they marched to the official residence of Chandigarh’s Home Secretary Krishan Mohan, demanding an FIR be registered against him.

Following high drama outside the Home Secretary’s residence, Senior Superintendent of Police S S Srivastava arrived at Sector 17 police station past midnight after which the FIR was registered against Kaif.