LAHORE, Feb 17: After the arbitration committee of the Pakistan Olympic Association, headed by Khalil Ahmed Khan, declared the Sept 14, 2011 elections of the Pakistan Cycling Federation (PCF) as null and void on Thursday and recommended fresh polls, both the warring groups reacted to the decision in contrasting ways on Friday.

The group headed by Munawar Baseer, which was declared winner, beating the other group of Nouraiz Shakoor, in a press statement said that his group had already expressed no trust on the arbitration committee headed by Khalil Ahmed Khan through a letter on Feb 10 and had asked POA president Arif Hasan to constitute another committee.

“No one from our group appeared before the arbitration committee,” a spokesman of the Munawar group further said in the press release.

The group also declared that they were genuine office-bearers of the PCF until the final decision and advised all affiliated members not to accept any instructions from the Nouraiz group.

Meanwhile, Nouraiz group claimed that after the decision of the arbitration committee, it had become clear that theirs was the genuine body to run the PCF.

“Under the constitution of the Pakistan Olympic Association, an arbitration committee was formed to resolve the issue arose in the Pakistan Cycling Federation due to the formation of a parallel body.

“The arbitration committee has announced its decision on Feb 16, declaring the previous office-bearers as the genuine body of the PCF which is led by Nouraiz Shakoor Khan as president, Idris Haider Khawaja as secretary general and Waqar Ali as treasurer,” Nouraiz group says in a press statement.

It may be mentioned here that it was the second arbitration committee formed to resolve this issue.

Earlier, a committee was formed under Iftikhar Tabassum.

But Nouraiz’s group had expressed its distrust on that committee as well and as a result the POA president had announced another committee under Khalil.