JKCA Chief Executive Officer, Syed Ashique Bukhari, today said that only JKCA knows how it managed to send the team for the national participation amid Jammu curfew.
He said that it was all arranged on war footing so that the team doesn’t miss the national participation as everything in Jammu had come to halt due to curfew.
“Everyone is questioning why the team was made to take multiple flights and had to spend hours at airport. Nobody is asking why this happened. The first priority for JKCA was to make it sure that team reaches Agartala on time for participation. Due to Jammu curfew every plan and every itinerary got messed up. We had to take players from hotels to airport in Jammu under police escort”.
“In short span of time whatever tickets and itinerary we could arrange we did that so that team doesn’t miss its match against Punjab. They may have spent some hours at airport in Kolkata but that is not big deal. We all do spend time at airports while waiting for flights. Also if it would have been possible to get same airline tickets we would have done that,” Bukhari said.
Bukhari also revealed that due to Jammu-Srinagar road blockade and following curfew JKCA provided accommodation to Kashmir based players in Jammu and also sent Kashmir cricketers by air to Kashmir.
“For 15 days JKCA provided accommodation in top hotel in Jammu for Kashmir women cricketers who were not selected as road was blocked. Then yesterday sent some non-selected cricketers back to Kashmir via air. This all we did amid high tension in Jammu and curfew,” he said.