Pakistan seeks help from World Squash Federation to secure visas for Junior Squash Championship in India

06/26/2018

After India denied visas to the Pakistani Squash contingent, the Pakistan Squash Federation (PSF) has sought the help of World Squash Federation to be able to participate in the Junior Squash Championship to be held in India. The event is scheduled to take place from July 18 to 23 in Chennai.

The PSF is quite frustrated with the fact that they were unable to secure visas for their contingent for the Junior Squash Championship, which will be held in India next month. In such a situation, the PSF sought out the World Squash Federation, asking to procure them visas or cancel the event in whole. The PSF secretary, Tahir Sultan has called the emoveas "sheer injustice" to deny them visas to an event where they have rightful participation.

“We are in the final stages of our preparations for the event having selected a team of six players and three officials. We have now asked the world body and other affiliated members to intervene and ensure we get the visas or else the World Championship should not be held in India,” Tahir has informed the PTI.

“The World Junior Championship is an international event of the World Squash Federation and it has been given to India to host next month. Unfortunately, so far we have been denied visas by the Indian authorities to send our contingent."

Moreover, according to Tahir, Pakistan has always outshone itself in the Squash Arena and many a world champions have been a product of Pakistan. He says that the other teams are also going to benefit from watching the Pakistan contingent play.

“I would think that in India where the sport is becoming popular they would benefit from watching our team play there,” he said.

Tahir has also noted that even last year the Pakistan Senior team was not granted visas to participate in the Asian Individual Championship. He has mentioned that they have dutifully followed all the procedures of the Indian High Commission in Islamabad, when applying for visas. Pakistan is going to be the defending Champions in this event.

“We had applied for visas in April. We also informed all the relevant squash bodies about this. On 20th June, the Indian High Commission returned all our passports and refused the visas for the contingent,” he said.