HYDERABAD, Nov 23: Senior members of the Dialdas club have appealed to people and the district administration to save the club from what they called the builder and club mafia.

Speaking at a press conference here on Wednesday, Nawab Mohammad Hassan Talpur, Nasir Mehmood Pirzada, Zahoor A. Baloch, Abdul Aziz and Shahid Arain alleged that office-bearers of the previous body managed to get the registration of their club cancelled by pressurizing the provincial assistant registrar of the joint stock companies in the Hyderabad region.

Speaking on behalf of the members, Nasir Mehmood Pirzada, the general secretary of the body, said that the senior members felt for the past several years that the previous governing body had earned millions of rupees in illegal manner to harm the club’s interests.

He said the tennis lawn of the club had been sold by the outgoing office bearers for their own interests.

He alleged that former Commissioner Abdul Ghaffar Soomro had given Rs200,000 in donation for the construction of a squash club at the club, but it had not been done.

Mr Pirzada accused the former club’s officials of filing a fake contractor’s lawsuit to claim damages of Rs990 million.

He said that objections had been raised before the outgoing representatives but they turned a deaf ear to them.

Mr Pirzada alleged that they had given both grounds of the club to the contractor for Rs100,000 per month.

He said that the contractor had announced in 2003 that he would build a new hall, provide Internet facilities, arrange free marriages of members, hold cricket and snooker tournaments, but did not do any of them.—Correspondent