INDIA and the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) must apologise over the incident in which Zeeshan Abbasi, the captain of Pakistan’s blind cricket team, drank phenyl which he mistook for mineral water at his hotel in India.

India has a history of such incidents with visiting Pakistani cricketers. Earlier, in the 1960s, the finger of Pakistan’s legendary batsman Hanif Muhammad was cut during team’s tour of India and no one was punished.

Zeeshan consumed the floor cleaning fluid while having breakfast at a five-star hotel.

Shameful was the reaction of the Indian media which called it an accident. And more deplorable was the silence of the Indian government, the BCCI and the ICC.

The Pakistan government and the Pakistan Cricket Board must demand an immediate apology from the Indian government and the BCCI.

NAYYAR UDDIN AHMAD Lahore