LAHORE: India, the host of the upcoming South Asian Games, has given just five days to the Pakistan Olympic Association (POA) to get Indian visa and reach New Delhi to attend the participating member countries meeting on July 8.

The games are to be held in December this year.

In reply, the POA has decided that its president retired Lt Gen Arif Hasan and secretary general Khalid Mahmood will attend the meeting, provided visa is issued to them in time by the Indian High Commission in Islamabad.

It will be a great success of both the POA and the Indian High Commission if Pakistani officials receive visa in time and reach India for the meeting.

The last South Asian Games were held in 2010 in Dhaka, and the next Games were to be organised by India. These Games however could not take place earlier due to some cogent reasons and now the new management of the Indian Olympic Association has planned to hold these games in November/ December 2015 in Guwahati and Shillong jointly.

“A meeting of the member countries in this regard is taking place in New Delhi on July 8, 2015. The main deliberations during the meeting will be on the issues of number of sports and events and number of entries in each discipline, accommodation, travel arrangements, security etc,” a POA press-release states here on Friday.

Published in Dawn, July 4th, 2015

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