Wagah, February 12
Chaotic scenes were witnessed at the Joint Checkpost here today following a rush of cricket fans for the third ODI between India and Pakistan to be played at Lahore, tomorrow (February 13).
The police resorted to a mild lathicharge to control the over-enthusiastic crowd, who had gathered here since early morning and were fed up with the long wait and the inadequate arrangements besides failure of directions for crossing over to Pakistan.
Since dawn the cricket fans thronged the entrance of the checkpost. However, they lost their cool when they did not find the authorities opening the gates and the number of people kept on increasing.
It resulted in desperation among the fans, who in a bid to outdo others started scaling the gates. In the melee a cricket fan, Vijay Bajaj of Rohtak, got injured.
Not able to submit their travelling papers, the cricket fans crowded the entrance of the Immigration building. This led to jostling among them that resulted in smashing of doors and window panes of the building. The police resorted to to a mild lathicharge to control the unruly crowd.
Mr D. P. Singh, Commissioner Customs, talking to the media, said that they had set up 15 counters to facilitate early clearance. Following this statement before a TV camera the cricket fans started raising slogans against the Customs and Immigration officials decrying inadequate arrangements.
The cricket fans, some of them wearing, the Tri-colour shirts and holding the national flag, were visibly perturbed at the ‘poor’ preparations. Mr Naresh Bansal from Ludhiana said they had been issued visas only for 72 hours and rued they had already lost half the day .
Mr Sudhir Kumar Chowdhury, 26, of Mujaffarpur (Bihar) crossed over to Pakistan on his bicycle to back up team India. He started his journey from his native village Damodarpur in Mujaffarpur on January 19.
“Here at the Wagah border there is a provision to clear only 1000 visitors during the day and it was difficult for the Custom and Immigration people to clear the crowd of 3000 at one time. It takes time to clear the international passengers as a lot of paper formalities are required to be cleared,”
a senior official of the Immigration Authority said.
