Director General of Police Dr S P Vaid declared open the 16th J&K Police Martyrs’ Memorial Football Tournament-2018 at Synthetic Turf TRC Ground here today.
The tournament is being organized by J&K Police annually under Civic Action Programme (CAP).
The opening ceremony was attended by S S Wazir, ADGP (Retd.), A K Choudhary, ADGP Armed, organizing Secretary of the Tournament, Abdul Ghani Mir, ADGP CID J&K, S.A. Wattali, IGP Armed / IR Kashmir, S.K. Gupta, Director SSG J&K, S P Pani, IGP Kashmir Zone, Hafiz Akhter, DIG (Retd.), Bashir Ahmad Dar, DIG (Retd.), Rashid Ahmad Dar, DIG (Rtd.) V.K. Birdi, DIG CKR Srinagar besides other senior retired and serving police officers, civil officers, football association / Sports Council members and huge number of spectators.
Dr S P Vaid in his address said that the tournament is being conducted regularly from 1998 in memory of martyrs of J&K Police to pay tributes to them.
DGP said that this tournament not only provides us an opportunity to remember hundreds of police personnel who have laid down their lives but also provides an opportunity to the players and budding talent of the valley to show their capability.
He disclosed that last year police spent approximately Rs 3 crore for various sports activities in the State.
He said that an amount of Rs 131.00 lakhs was spent for conducting sports festivals at district, range and zonal level during the last year.
For promoting the rural sports and other activities, Rs 40,000/- each was distributed among the 193 Police Stations across the State.
Highlighting the youth engagement endeavors of J&K Police, the DGP said that the Police Organization under the Civic Action Programme (CAP) provides Desks, Computers Stationery to the poor students. It also conducts Bharat Darshan Tours for the Students of the State.
Dr Vaid said in order to attract more and more talent to J&K Police a sports policy has been submitted to the government for consideration. He said that Ministry of Home Affairs has approved two Synthetic Turfs for North and Central Kashmir and hoped that the Synthetic Turf with flood lights will be approved for South Kashmir in near future.
He thanked the Central and State government for enhancing the ex-gratia relief for martyr police personnel and SPOs. He said that a martyr police personnel now gets Rs.55.00 lakh while as martyr SPO gets Rs.17.50 lakh.
Earlier, ADGP Armed J&K (Organizing Secretary of the Tournament) in his welcome speech said that 34 teams across the J&K State are participating in the 16th edition of the tournament.
Moreover, he also announced that winner team of the tournament will receive a trophy and a cash prize of Rs 1 lakh, runners up team with a trophy and a cash prize of Rs 75,000 and 1st runner up team will also be given a trophy and a cash prize of Rs 50,000 which will be increased in the next year.
The DGP J&K also witnessed the exhibition cum inaugural match played between J&K Police Veteran XI and J&K Football Association Veteran XI which was won by JKFA in penalty shootouts.
Chief guest presented mementos to all players of both the teams and winners and runners up trophies to J&K Football Association Veteran XI and J&K Police Veteran XI respectively.