KARACHI: The Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) lodged an FIR with the Gulberg Police Station in Lahore late on Saturday night against the armed occupation of the PFF House.

Saturday saw farcical scenes at the secretariat of Pakistan’s football governing body when Ali Haider Noor Niazi, a candidate for the Punjab Football Association (PFA) elections, stormed into the building with dozens of armed men and held the buil­ding hostage for two hours.

The PFF, in the FIR, demanded that criminal action under the Anti-terrorism act is taken against the individuals.

A copy of the FIR, which was made available by the PFF on Sunday, addressed to the station officer by PFF secretary Col Ahmed Yar Khan Lodhi said the PFF House was “taken over by Ali Haider Noor Niazi along with Hafiz Salman Butt, Moazam, Rana Ashraf, Akram Muba­rak, Malik Tariq Rashid, Ch. Shafique and Meh­m­ood Khalid accompanied by 100 other armed men”.

Noor is said to come to the building to harass the election commissioner for the PFA elections, Syed Nayyar Haider, into accepting his nomination papers and also informed Lodhi that he was no more PFF secretary “as ordered by Punjab sports minister Rana Mashood and Sports Board Punjab (SBP) director-general Usman Anwar”.

Noor also threatened that “the Punjab Government will cancel the lease of the premises on which the PFF House stands” and they will hold the building hostage unless his papers were accepted for the post of PFA president”.

Published in Dawn, April 13th, 2015

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