The England badminton team were criticised by the sport’s governing body yesterday after withdrawing from the World Championships in India amid fears that the Islamist terrorist group responsible for last year’s atrocity in Mumbai is planning to target the tournament.
It was thought that players from Scotland and Wales were likely to remain in the southern city of Hyderabad despite the terrorist fears that have also served to heighten concerns about the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi.
Thomas Lund, the chief operating officer of the Badminton World Federation (BWF) said: “Whilst the BWF respects the decision by England, it’s unfortunate that the English team made their decision before we had had an opportunity to properly brief the team management before they decided. We had intelligence information which would have been important in the assessment of the security of their team.”
The eight-strong England team pulled out of the event, which starts today, over “concerns about the team potentially being a target”, Badminton England said in a statement.
The move came after local media reported that India’s Intelligence Bureau (IB) believed that the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorist faction was planning a strike similar to the commando-style ambush of the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore, Pakistan, in March, which killed seven people and wounded six players. An attack by ten LeT gunmen in Mumbai in November claimed 166 lives.
Indian officials played down the reports but Hyderabad is regarded as a key LeT base and has a history of Muslim-Hindu violence. Ajit Doval, a former director of the IB, told The Times that the Pakistan-based group were known to have a presence, including sleeper cells, in the city. “It has been one of their strongest bases in India,” he said.
Last month, Manchester United were forced to abandon a tour of Indonesia after bomb attacks at two hotels, including the one in which the team were due to stay, killed seven people. It has been suggested that United were the target but the attack, responsibility for which was claimed by an offshoot of al-Qaeda, was mistimed.
In April, the Indian Premier League, cricket’s wealthiest tournament, was moved from the subcontinent to South Africa. The switch, which cost as much as £300 million, was forced by the Lahore attack.
The chief executive of Badminton England, Adrian Christy, said: “After the Olympic Games, this is the most prestigious championships in the world but we were not prepared to risk the safety of our players, coaches and staff in what we felt could have been a very volatile environment.
Christy said the team, which included Nathan Robertson, the Olympic silver medallist , had “carefully considered” information from local police authorities.
India’s Home Ministry and police in Hyderabad yesterday denied that a threat was received from the LeT.
V.K. Verma, president of the Badminton Association of India, said that the England team had “taken some media reports seriously”. The 44 other teams, including the United States, Russia, France, China and Indonesia, had arrived for the championships, he added. “No other country has pulled out,” he said.
Gerry Sutcliffe, the Sports Minister, said: “Badminton England have made their decision and Foreign Office advice is also saying that there could be trouble in that particular area.
“I hope we can do something about it because clearly we’ve got the Commonwealth Games in India next year, and we don’t want to see major sporting events affected in this way.”
(Source: Timesonline.co.uk)
