Denied visa, Pakistan's sports body lodges complaint

Karachi: The Pakistan Billiards and Snooker Association has lodged a formal complaint with the sport's world governing body and the organisers after their squad was denied visas by the Indian High Commission for the IBSF U-18 and U-21 World Championships, which began in Bengaluru on Saturday. A top official of the PBSA said that they couldn't secure visas for their three players, Ahsan Ramazan, Hasnain Akhtar and Hamza Illyas.

"We had applied to the Indian High Commission on time after getting all NOCs from our government and Pakistan Sports Board. But they didn't issue visas due to which our squad could not travel to Bengaluru," Alamgir Sheikh said.

He said the three players had recently done very well for Pakistan and had very good chances of doing well in the world events but were deprived of an opportunity.


"One of our referees Naveed Kapadia could also not travel because of not getting a visa after being nominated by the IBSF to supervise in the world events," Sheikh said.

He said the PBSA had taken up the matter with the International Billiards and Snooker Federation (IBSF) and the Indian Billiards and Snooker body.