KARACHI, Sept 11: Pakistan Army dominated on the second day of the national ranking boxing tournament which saw six of their pugilists marching into the finals on Thursday.

Karachi Port Trust (KPT) followed the soldiers with four of their boxers sailing into the finals including stars featherweight Meherullah and light-welterweight Asghar Ali Shah.

The bouts, which were scheduled to begin at 5.30pm, however, could not be started until 6.45pm as officials, including referee judges and even boxers were called up to sit as audience during a show at the Pakistan Television.

The show, which was also attended by PBF president Anwar Chowdhry, was recorded by the national television channel to honour the boxers who recently returned after winning medals at Commonwealth boxing championship in Kuala Lumpur.

According to Chowdhry, the delay was caused as the referee judges and the members of the jury who were asked to come to the television station as audience, did not reach the venue on scheduled time.

“The show was to start at 3.30pm and would have been over before 5.30pm. But when I reached the TV station nobody was there. The show finally started after the officials arrived,” the PBF chief said.

The contest is being organized by the PBF to enable the national coach Alveraz Ulacia to select the two teams for next month’s Green Hill Cup tournament in Karachi.

Asian Games silver medallist Ahmad Ali Khan of Army proved too hot for Punjab’s Kashif Khan as referee had to stop the fight in the third round.

Armymen Syed Hassan Shah reached the light-flyweight final after an outright 3-0 victory over Punjab’s Aijaz Ahmad.

Tariq Zia, Faisal Karim, Nisar Ahmad, Abdul Razzaq were the other Army boxers who qualified for final after one-sided fights.

Meher, who became star after winning the only gold medal for Pakistan at last year’s Busan Asian Games, thrashed Army’s Mehtab Ahmad 3-0.

Commonwealth Games silver medallist Asghar had easy sailing against Balochistan’s Mohammad Ibraheem as the KPT boxer won after a RSC/OC verdict in the very first round.

The light-flyweight bout between Balochistan’s Mushtaq Hussain and KPT’s Obaidullah Qambrani was one of the most engrossing fights of the day.

Youthful Mushtaq showed lots of promise when his powerful left floored Obaid in the first round who took seconds to get onto his feet. After receiving variety of punches in the opening round from Mushtaq, Obaid could not recover in the remaining rounds and lost 3-0.

Results:

Semifinals: