July 29, 2007	Sunday	Rajab 13, 1428

KARACHI, July 28: The Pakistan Boxing Federation (PBF) split into two factions on Saturday when one of its vice-presidents joined the Sindh Boxing Association (SBA) as chairman despite the federation’s insistence that it doesn’t recognize the provincial body.

An interesting situation was created at the SBA meeting when Shah Naeem Zafar, who is a PBF vice-president, was elected chairman of the association which was formed on June 22 after elections in Mirpurkhas.

The Anwar Chowdhry-led PBF had also held a separate SBA elections on June 27 in Hyderabad, announcing that the federation didn’t recognize the body formed in Mirpurkhas which was headed by Ali Akbar Shah.

Interestingly, Shah Naeem commented that he has sympathies with group headed by Ali Akbar since the PBF president Zafar Zuberi had deceived them by saying that polls would be held but later went back on his words.

“I have, of course, difference with the PBF on SBA elections issue. Ali Akbar and his associates met Zafar Zuberi well before June 22 elections and asked him to hold the SBA elections. Zafar told them that the PBF would support and hold the elections but later he informed them on June 21 that the PBF will not support their polls and hold their own SBA elections on June 27,” Naeem told Dawn.

However, when quizzed about his simultaneous association with the PBF and the rival group headed by rebels, Naeeem was far from convincing.

“Why should I tender resignation from the PBF post? If the PBF thinks that I have done something wrong, then federation should ask me for an explanation,” he replied.

When asked if he thought the PBF was creating a mess only at the Sindh level or at national level Chowdhry was also the force behind the mess in sport, Naeem said he only had differences over the SBA polls issue.

Another official, Asghar Baloch, an SBA executive joint secretary and a member of Ali Akbar group, said that he along with Ali Akbar and other district officials had met the PBF president before the SBA polls and Zafar had assured them of full cooperation in holding the elections.

“But Zafar Zuberi failed to fulfil his promise. He called us and said that he is just a dummy president and Anwar Chowdhry is running the show single-handedly.”

“Chowdhry had told Zafar that only Akram (Khan), the then secretary of the SBA, was empowered to hold the elections. Zafar then had clearly said that he had no powers to force Chowdhry in holding the SBA elections and added that he could not spoil his 56-year-old relations with the PBF chairman,” disclosed Asghar.

According to Asghar, Zafar had also informed him about how he was shown a tampered PBF constitution by the PBF secretary Shakeel Durrani which listed Zafar as the president while Chowdhry as chairman.

It was done when Chowdhry was installed chairman and Zafar president to fulfil the criteria of the National Sports Policy which says any top official can hold offices of national federations for two years only.