How many years, how many years
How many years did Asif get
How many years, how many years
How many years did Salman get
How many years, how many years
How many years did Aamer get
How many years, how many years
How many years did Wasim Bhai get
How many years, how many years
How many years did Waqar get
How many years, how many years
How many years did Akmal get
How many years, how many years
How many years did the Pak fan get
How many years, how many years
How many years did Ijaz Butt get?
How many years, how many years
How many years did the PCB get?
How many years, how many years
How many years did Azhar get
How many years, how many years
How many years did Jaddu get
How many years, how many years
How many years did Hansie get
How many years, how many years
How many years did Hansie get
HOW MANY YEARS, HOW MANY YEARS
HOW MANY YEARS DID HANSIE GET.
Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry took suo moto notice of the incident after TV news channels beamed shocking footage of the youths Hafiz Mughees, 21, and his brother Hafiz Muneeb, 16 being beaten to death by a group of men armed with sticks and rods.
Sialkot district police chief Waqar Chauhan, eight other policemen and hundreds of people watched the lynching.
The video aired by news channels showed that the youths were hit repeatedly by some men.
The mob later hung the bodies of the brothers upside down in a square.
According to a First Information Report filed by police, the brothers were going to meet their relatives in Buttar village when some people caught them and accused them of being robbers.
In a brazen display of mob justice, they tortured the brothers, killed them and then hung their bodies and tried to burn them.
The family of the youths has demanded justice and stern legal action against police officials who failed to rescue the brothers.
The family said the youths were killed in the wake of a dispute over a cricket match they played some time ago.
The Deputy Commissioner of Sialkot said a charged mob killed the two brothers for injuring four people in a dispute over a cricket match.
Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry ordered Anti- Corruption Director General Justice (retired) Kazim Malik to investigate the matter.
"No one will dare to take the law into his own hands if police had the courage and command to eradicate such brutal and inhuman practices from society," Chaudhry said while heading a bench that heard the suo moto case yesterday.
The atmosphere in the apex court became tense when the gruesome video of the killing of the brothers was shown in the courtroom.
When district police chief Chauhan informed the court that Station House Officer Rana Mohammed Ilyas had been arrested but the killers were yet to be detained, the Chief Justice said Chauhan deserved to be suspended and sent to jail.
--
Substitute Aamer, Butt and Asif for the two boys, the media and the court of public opinion for the mob, the ACSU for the police and pretty much what happened to the boys is what is happening to the reputation and lives of the accused trio.
So the next time someone is a hapless victim of mob violence, dont grieve. And someone is lynched in public, don't express shock and horror.Because when civil society abdicates its responsibility and chooses anarchy over due process as the expedient solution, this is the only outcome possible.
PS: - This link, for your perusal
I don't give a jot about Pakistan Cricket. Never have, never will. And there are plenty of reasons not to warm up to the shenanigans of the PCB, especially under Ijaz Butt.
That said, I do care deeply about due process. And right now, 4 Pakistanis, and their national team,are being destroyed by innuendo, rumor and trial by media.
And that is absolutely not fair.
A charge has been made, the onus is now with the people making that charge to prove it. If proven, mete out the maximum punishments possible on the accused because failure to do so with give root to more innuendo, rumor and trial by media.
If the charges are not proven, I would implore the ICC to take the lead in whatever legal action necessary to right the wrongs.
And while we are at it, spare a thought for the accused. Irrespective of the outcome of the process, the four main accused are going to spend the rest of their lives living under the shadow of innuendo. The next time Aamer bowls a no ball, however marginal,what are the odds that it will be accepted as such?
And therein lies the real shame of this sorry state of affairs.
Dramatic, no? But allow me to make my case for how accurate that title is.
There were so many, simply unbelievably so many people who made this tour of England possible. And they all did it for one thing: they love cricket and they know how much cricket needs Pakistan. And you wouldn't be too far off the mark if you said Pakistan needs cricket just as much.
People are often quick to point out how many times Australia have refused to tour Pakistan. What they fail to also add is that, in years when Pakistan have hardly had any international cricket, they've played a lot against Australia, and plenty of those matches have been at neutral venues. Whether that was in the scorching, unforgiving heat in the UAE (both tests and ODIs), the oppressive humidity on slow pitches in Sri Lanka or in the most conducive of swing bowling conditions in England, Australia have not eschewed a responsibility to playing against Pakistan. And Pakistan needed those games, one might argue more than Australia did.
England gave Pakistan the opportunity to host matches on their turf against Australia, giving them the opportunity to entertain thousands of passionate fans in the British Isles while helping the PCB in the midst of their sternest financial crisis to date. The MCC went so far as to christen the two series as "The Spirit of Cricket", cognizant of the fact that Pakistan's tours of England in the past were marked by unsavory incidents and that the best way to help ensure this series went smoothly and benefited one and all, and particularly Pakistan, was to make the cricketers believe they had a greater responsibility to fair play. How utterly ironic and misplaced that theme was in the light of what has transpired.
The Pakistani people, starved of competitive international test cricket at home, facing hardship after hardship whether man-made or natural, willed their team on. They took heart, comfort and strength from the performances of gifted young men who were never expected to win too much, but excelled and excited everyone who loves the game. That delivery bowled by Amir to dismiss Mitchell Johnson was easily the best bowled this year. And despite the ragged and often comical fielding, the inadequate and inexperienced batting, the team won. And not once, but twice, written off before each match. For a nation of proud cricket crazy fans, there could have been fewer things that kept them going in such tough times.
All of these people were betrayed by those who gave in to temptation for a few dollars more. You might even say the ICC was betrayed since they also played a heavy role in facilitating this series, but as Straight Point argues, they are also culpable since their Anti-Corruption Unit seemed oblivious to what was going on when they should have been on high alert- young cricketers playing under a weak corrupt board, unsure of what might happen next to them, their careers, their families and their country were always going to be easy targets and the ACU had a responsibility to ensure they were given little opportunity to stray.
The players had a responsibility, they should have understood how dire the consequences of their actions were. The team, like the country, was in ruins and the future of the side was at stake. Already several veterans have been dismissed for their erratic and irrational behavior over the last couple of years. It seems like the team has been rebuilding since forever. And now everything that might have been achieved has been ruined. The game's future in the country is in doubt. People will lose faith.
The circus that is about to follow is so predictable that it would be hilarious if it were not so sad. There will be a commission created to find out what has gone wrong, there will be calls for blood and reform, there will be promises made that things will change and unscrupulous politicians will try to gain as much mileages as they can from these events. The media and ex-cricketers will demand someone who is distinguished and who has integrity take charge, but will they find such a candidate, one who is willing to work in an environment where at any moment a politician can demand and overrule any decision made? There will be some scapegoats made to ensure the best and most talented are allowed to continue, they will be painted as the scheming villains who fooled innocent and naive youngsters into bringing the game into disrepute for their (the scapegoats') sole benefit.
Perhaps ultimately it will be that these cricketers have betrayed themselves. Promising world class talents who should have rewritten record books will either end up not playing and achieving their potential or having to live with the taint of fixing and getting away with it. The game was betrayed this weekend, and betrayal brings anger. But if people are to emerge from this better than when they went into it, then anger needs to be pushed to the backseat and sensible decisions must be taken with just one aim, securing the future of the game. For we love cricket and we know how much cricket needs Pakistan. But things must not be allowed to continue as they have in the past. And if Pakistan can't change and cannot free itself from this corruption, then cricket must not change for it. We must keep trying to support Pakistani cricket and give them opportunities, but at the same time we must demand that they are willing to help themselves.
The day started normal. Woke up late. Got fresh and went for coffee with a friend. Chatted for a couple of hours. Came home. Put on the TV to see how Pakistan is doing in the 2nd inning. See them struggle. Comment on their Jeckyll and Hyde syndrome on Twitter. Then see some really strange Tweets. People are abusing Mohd. Aamer. Sidin is tweeting that no balls should be banned. Thought that dig was a week overdue. Then read on Cricinfo. SPOT FIXING ALLEGATIONS. I shrug. This is Pakistan. A heavy defeat leads to nutcases crying "fixing". Then see people whom I trust abusing Pakistan. Jarrod Kimber, Pakistan's biggest Australian supporter writes his most emotional post till date. You can see his tears dripping from each word. What the fuck is going on?
Still in denial. Think this team has made Test cricket more compelling just on its own. Cannot be true. Tweet about maintaining calm. Get a heated response on Twitter. Heated response on cricket is usual. But this was from Venkat Ananth. Something is not right. I still Tweet my support for Aamer. He is too precious a lad to go waste this early. Then I log on to Bored. Then I get hold of the NOTW link.
Blackout.
I see the ugly nature of cricket. Two of the best fast bowlers of the current times, two bowlers supposed to cary forward the legacy of fast bowling, whoring their souls for a fistful of dollars. I read the comments which the commentary team passed. They are incredulous. But they, like me and countless others gave these two the benefit of doubt. We needed concrete proof. Sadly, we got it.
Why would they do it? Asif, one can understand. Doping, fights with the Rawalpindi chindi, affairs and tifs with TV starlets, you can see him do such an act. But Aamer? The boy has "great fast bowler" written in his destiny in bright neon colours. Why does he have to do it? Do these fellows not have enough trust in their talent that they have to make money like this?
The story of the Pakistan tea of late has been akin to a Greek tragedy. I do not intend to recap it. Just will say that the last thing Pakistan needed as a team and a country (ravaged with floods, encroached by extremists, led by a dalaal) is this. The last thing Test cricket needed was this. This has been a Black Sunday.
For Pakistan. For cricket.
P.S. : The grand old man of cricket nails it:
What happens if a bowler runs up and bowls a ball which is correctly called 'no-ball' by the umpire?
Will fans turn to one another and raise their eyebrows or just shake their heads and think about walking out of the ground.
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
by W.H Auden
News of the World link
© Bored Cricket Crazy Indians
Bored Cricket Crazy Indians is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial-no Derivative Works 2.5 India License.
based on a work at boredcricketcrazyindians.com
More »
