November 18, 2002	Monday	Ramazan 12, 1423

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KARACHI, Nov 17: The bitter row between Karachi Hockey Association (KHA) officials has been resolved after its secretary decided to quit voluntarily.

According to the deal, Jawaid M. Quddusi, the secretary of the KHA will swap his post with Gulfaraz Ahmad’s, who is the vice-president of the association. The in-house decision was taken on the basis of mutual understanding at the KHA meeting on Nov 14.

The association will officially have its new secretary in Gulfaraz when the KHA executive committee meets Monday to be chaired by KHA president Rear Admiral Nashat Raffi.

The president of the KHA had already been taken into confidence and he was likely to give his approval to the change at the meeting, Gulfaraz confirmed Sunday.

Gulfaraz admitted he, along with his colleagues, reached an agreement with Jawaid after which he would take charge as the new KHA secretary.

“Things have been settled. We (Gulfaraz and Jawaid) will exchange our posts. We have informed the KHA president about the development who will approve the change tomorrow,” he said.

Gulfaraz said since the KHA officials felt hockey activity was yet to be revived and the new secretary could play a better part in reviving the game, it had been decided to have a change.

“Since we feel the secretary is the main authority and there is no activity in the city, we will have a new secretary after he (Jawaid) agreed to let us take the command,” he said.

Jawaid, however, had earlier stated KHA officials’ resentment was also because he had failed to recommend their names for the foreign trips.

KHA officials also felt it was because of Jawaid that four elected Karachi officials were deprived of their representation at the Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) Congress held earlier September.

Jawaid was among the four who replaced the elected officials on the instructions of the PHF which was done to allegedly accommodate favourites and counter any resistance at the PHF elections.