KARACHI, Feb 10: In a rare show of defiance, the Karachi South Boxing Association (KSBA) went ahead with its elections on Saturday despite repeated warnings by Sindh Boxing Association (SBA) to refrain from such activity.

The SBA had twice warned the KSBA not to hold its polls before the forthcoming National Games in Karachi but the KBSA decided to revolt against the body to which it is affiliated by electing Malang Baloch as the chairman, Abid Hussain Brohi as president and Muhammad Asghar Baloch the secretary-general of the association.

SBA on Jan 19, announced that elections of the districts associations would be held after the National Games which are likely to be organised in April.

On Feb 2 and 6, the SBA secretary, Akram Khan asked KSBA to provide details of the registered clubs, names of the secretaries and presidents of clubs as well as progress reports of the last two years. He also warnied the KSBA that elections held prior to the National Games would not be “acceptable.”

“If you hold the elections on Feb 10, it will be illegal and not acceptable to us, secretary Sindh Sports Board (SSB) and SOA. It is therefore advised that you should not hold the elections before the National Games,” Akram wrote to KSBA on Feb 6.

Nevertheless, according to the newly-elected KSBA secretary Asghar, a deputy director of SSB named Shahzad was also present during the Saturday polls as an observer. Asghar contended that since the last KSBA elections were held in February 2001, the new polls were due in February 2005 and it was imperative to hold the elections this year.

Asked why KSBA held the polls while it could have waited till the National Games, the official said the association had no option but to go for the polls since PBF chairman Anwar Chowdhry and his son-in-law Shakeel Durrani, the president of SBA, wanted time to manipulate results by rigging the polls.

“We had been writing to the SBA for about a year to let us hold elections but we were not permitted to do so. This is the first time in the history of Pakistan boxing that elections of any boxing body were held in the country without any outside influence. Earlier, they (Chowdhry and Shakeel) would hand-pick the officials at all the levels.

“After the defeat at AIBA they are now looking to save their positions at national level. As district south is a hub of boxing which has produced big names in the sport, Chowdhry and Shakeel want to buy some time to regroup and pull strings to select their own set of sycophants,” he said.

Asghar said that PBF was planning to buy off some people for KSBA elections by giving an incentive of providing the clubs with equipment recently given by Pakistan Sports Trust to the federation. The official said SBA had no constitution of its own and had never held any meeting since it was formed under National Sports Policy in August 2002.

“SBA elections were due in August 2006 but it is a body which is being single-handedly run by Chowdhry and Shakeel. We, however, have shown that there will be no selection any more in the drawing rooms. There will now be proper elections instead.”

Asghar also challenged SBA by saying that it had planned to hold elections in 12 districts of the province although only six of them — Karachi South, Karachi West, Karachi Malir, Hyderabad, Mirpurkhas and Dharki – were active. “There is absolutely no boxing activity in Dadu, Thatta, Badin, Larkana, Karachi East, Karachi Central.” Shakeel, who has gone to Taiwan for unknown reasons, was not available for comment.

KSBA elected office-bearers are:

Malang Baloch (chairman), Abid Hussain Brohi (president), Muhammad Siddiq (sr vice-president), Abdul Wahid, Ali Bukhsh, Gul Jan (vice-presidents), Muhammad Asghar Baloch (secretary), Ameer bukhsh Baloch (associate secretary), Abdul Razzak (joint secretary), Inamul Haq (treasurer), Younus Qambrani (information scretray), Mehar Bukhsh (propaganda secretary), Abdul Rashid (secretary records).