NEW DELHI: The Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) confirmed on Wednesday that the Pakistani contingent will be granted visas to participate in the Asian Junior Championships, which will take place from July 17 to 22 in the city, Press Trust of India reports.
However, an undertaking has been signed which will restrict the movement of the “enemy country’s” contingent to just the competition venue.
The issue was being delayed reportedly as the Ministry of Home Affairs had withheld issuing visas to wrestlers not just from Pakistan, but from Iraq and Afghanistan as well. The WFI panicked over the Pakistan issue as it could have been penalised by the game’s governing body, United World Wrestling (UWW) if wrestlers from the country weren’t permitted to take part.
“We got a call from a home ministry official today that wrestlers from Pakistan can come to India and compete. They will be granted visas,” WFI assistant secretary Vinod Tomar told PTI.
“We have to give an undertaking to the Crime Branch that we will take responsibility of the Pakistani wrestlers. We have to ensure that Pakistani wrestlers do not go anywhere except the hotel and the venue,” he added.
Federation secretary VN Prasood is relieved that the issue was sorted out, without an emergency meeting required between the WFI and Home Minister Rajnath Singh.
“It’s a good for us and for the championships. Last time also Pakistani wrestlers had not got clearance and it created problems for us. They had complained to the United World Wrestling. This time they had spoken to the UWW in advance,” Prasood said.
“We organise these championships for the development of the sport and our athletes. We are glad that now we can conduct it smoothly,” he added.
More than 300 wrestlers, including 100 women, from 18 countries will be battling it out in the Freestyle and Greeco Roman style competitions in the six-day championship which is offering 10 Gold, 10 Silver and 20 Bronze medals.
The home ministry has been chary about granting visas to the Pakistani sportsperons in the recent past. A case in point was the Asian Cadet Championship in 2015.
The MHA had created difficulties on the matter of isuing visas for junior squash players from Paakistan as well recently for the World Junior Squash Championships to take place in Chennai, co-incidentally on July 17 as well. In that case as well, visas were finally cleared only after the World Squash Federation and Asian Squash Federation were asked by the Pakistan Squash Federation to intercede in the matter.
