KARACHI: Former captain Rashid Latif has recently reiterated his stance on strict action against corrupt cricketers by sidelining them from the national team. However, prominent lawmaker Iqbal Muhammad Ali has gone a step further and asked for the charge be deemed as severe as that for “treason” against cricketers proved guilty of corruption.

Talking to this correspondent, the Member of the National Assembly further said that he has almost prepared a bill to be presented in the lower house in a bid to include cricket corruption into the penal code like in many other countries around the world.

“This is no less than treason because these [corrupt] cricketers betray the entire nation and bring bad name to the country”, Iqbal Muhammad Ali said Iqbal, who is a member of the standing committee on sports in the National Assembly, added : “I have prepared a bill with reference to corrupt cricketers and will have final consultation with my lawyer in Islamabad as the situation gets better. I will hopefully table the bill as soon as the National Assembly session resumes,” Iqbal said The bill, if gets passed from the lower house, will need endorsement from the upper house of Senate as well.

Iqbal also expressed his reservations regarding cricket board affairs and said that the public accounts committee of the lower house (National Assembly) was to summon the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) officials at the end of March but the assembly session was adjourned indefinitely because of the global pandemic Covid_19.

In November last year, Sri Lanka became the first South Asian nation to criminalise several offences related to match-fixing, after its parliament passed a bill titled “Prevention of Offences Related to Sports” which was related to corruption in sports and carried a prison term of up to 10 years, as well as various other fines.

Published in Dawn, April 13th, 2020