Pargat sorts out ‘outsider’ issue

Kusum Arora

Punjab Director of Sports Pargat Singh has taken serious note of the ‘outsiders’ issue in the hockey tournament at the Shaheed-e-Azam Bhagat Singh Punjab Games and said today that he would ensure that such mistakes does not occur again

Admitting that there was lapse on the part of the Technical Committee in resolving the issue, Pargat said: “Next time, we will take care that such mistakes do not take place. We would definitely place a mechanism to check birth certificates, educational details and work profiles of players before conducting a tournament of this repute.”

He clarified that the issue was resolved amicably and all the three matches were conducted smoothly. “This confusion was cleared when we clarified that players from Railways and Services were allowed to play in the tournament,” he said, adding that the issue arose as they could not check the documents of those players who were away for the National Games in Jharkhand.

Pargat was present at the Olympian Surjit Hockey Stadium here.

However, he maintained that the Technical Committee, headed by Chairman Sukhbir Grewal, had failed to resolve the issue and take a decision. “I fail to understand why the Technical Committee was reluctant in resolving the matter yesterday,” Pargat Singh said.

Answering a query about action against Grewal, Pargat said, “Post the Punjab Games, we will probe this issue threadbare.”

He stated that Gurdaspur had withdrawn their protest against rivals Ludhiana in writing after a meeting yesterday, following which the match was held today. The other two contentious matches were also held.

However, contrary to this, the Gurdaspur players maintained that they had played the match under protest as the five outsiders from Ludhiana were not dropped.

While the Mohali team went back following disciplinary action against Indian hockey skipper, Rajpal Singh, the girls’ match between Kapurthala and Muktsar was held after Deepika Thakur, a Railways player, was dropped from the Kapurthala team. Later in the evening, Deepika re-inducted for semi-finals.