New Delhi: Condemning the terrorist attack in Punjab’s Dinanagar town, BJP MP and Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) secretary Anurag Thakur on Monday said “cricket and terror cannot go hand in hand”, thereby placing a question mark over India’s planned series against Pakistan in December.
India and Pakistan last played a bilateral series in 2012-13 and there was a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) of six series that is applicable until 2022, with the UAE a potential host.
“I condemn the terrorist attacks, specially in the Gurdaspur region. If you talk about cricket with Pakistan, we must understand that the life of every Indian is very important to us. As I see my responsibility as BCCI secretary, as a Parliamentarian, the life of every Indian is very important to me. It’s not only about cricket, it’s about my country,” Thakur, a lawmaker of India’s ruling party BJP, told a television channel.
“Cricket and terror cannot go hand in hand. Earlier also there was no such decision that the series will take place. Only the PCB has reached out to the BCCI. We were talking on those lines, but when you see such attacks on India time and again, the Jammu region, now Punjab, where Indians are losing their lives, as an Indian I don’t see a possibility to that,” the Hamirpur MP added.
Thakur’s words comes after six people — a senior police officer, two home guards personnel and three civilians — were killed in the attack.
Pakistan are to play host to India in December 2015 as part of the Future Tours Programme (FTP) system of cricket’s world governing body, the ICC. The series involves three Tests, five One Day Internationals and two Twenty20 Internationals.