Pak hockey team left high and dry at Delhi rly station

The last time a Pak team came to take part in the tournament was in 1951, and it was also a Lahore-based Club called the Bata Club. And interestingly, Saifi was a member of that squad.

“We spoke with Shiv Kumar Verma, secretary of the Nehru Hockey Memorial Society in Delhi who was assigned by the Bengal Hockey Association to take care of our team,” Saifi told The Indian Express at the State government guest house here. “And Verma said all arrangements would be made for us inDelhi.”

To the surprise of the team, when they reached New Delhi station by Samjhota Express on the morning of April 6 they found none to receive them. “For a major part of the day, we sat on the platform as we were denied entry in the waiting room,” says Qadeer Bashir, captain of the team and a member of Pakistan’s last World Cup, who works in the education department of the Punjab Government of Pakistan. Later in the afternoon, a group of the members boarded the train for Calcutta with the help of Rs 2,500 bribe to the ticket checker for a few berths.

Their trauma did not end there, says Bashir. At the train, after a few stations it turned out that the berths were not actually allotted to them and they had been duped. They were evicted from their berths and the rest of the journey they travelled without seats.

“Hamare saath bahut zaati hui hai,” says Bashir. “After all we are guests,” the captain says. And the experience that the other members of the team had during their journey wasawful, he says.

But the captain also says that he would not bring the bitterness back to his country. “It is an official goof-up. We are here to play the game and we want to build the bridge of friendship between the two countries,” he says.

Echoes Zuber Khan, a player, and a clinical psychologist by profession. “We have forgotten everything after we came to Calcutta. We have been accorded very good reception here,” he says.

Gurbux Singh, Secretary, Bengal Hockey Association, admits the faux pax in New Delhi and says that it is unfortunate. “The Pakistan team got their visa on the evening of April 3 and April 4 was Sunday. They boarded the train on the 5th,” the former Olympian and Arjuna awardee told The Indian Express. “I don’t blame anyone. It was a communication gap,” he says.