Vinod Rai Bans Committee Formed By CK Khanna To Look Into Palam Security Breach
Nov 7, 2017 at 12:48 PM
Vinod Rai, the head of the Committee of Administrators (COA), has banned the committee formed by the CK Khanna, the acting President of BCCI, which was given the task to look in to the security breach incident that happened on the third day of the Ranji game between Delhi and Uttar Pradesh in Palam stadium, where a man drove his car into the playing area at the closing minutes of the game:
“I find that the acting President did not get himself briefed by the BCCI administration before deciding to constitute the said committee. There was no consultation with the COA either on this issue. It needs to be appreciated that the Palam ground is an Air Force ground. Security of armed forces premises are managed by the Armed Forces themselves and they will not allow BCCI or any other civilian agency to undertake the investigation of either its premises or provide documents. Hence, the exercise of ‘collecting documents/reports to prepare the details’ by Prof. Shetty will be a futile exercise. It will thus unnecessarily cause inconvenience the members of the committee with no tangible benefit emerging from the exercise,” Rai wrote in his letter to Khanna, as per a report in PTI.
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Earlier, the board used to form committees to look into every matter, which came into its light but now, probably for the first time, any President has been barred from conducting the inquiry.
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Meanwhile, the impact of the gatecrash incident was seen on the final day of the game when the Palam ground authorities did not allow any spectator in the ground. Media persons, with only BCCI accreditation, were allowed inside the ground and the players had to play in front of an empty ground.
It is also a fact that this breach also opened the security arrangements at Palam as a man driving a car in a Ranji Trophy game is something unheard of. Probably, it was one of the strangest ways to halt the game.
Players were left surprised by this incident. Despite this, DDCA authorities have not ruled out Palam from contention to host Delhi’s last league stage game. Delhi is scheduled to face Maharashtra from November 17 in Delhi and in case they do not use the Feroz Shah Kotla stadium, the option in the form of Palam is always open for DDCA.
A final decision over it will be taken in days to come. Delhi though has already suffered a blow ahead of next contest as Ishant Sharma has left the camp to join the Indian cricket team ahead of the Test series against Sri Lanka. Akash Sudan and Lalit Yadav have been added to the team. Rishab Pant will make his debut as a captain of a first-class side in the next contest.
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