Pak media blames India’s RAW and Sharad Pawar for cricketers’ shame

This could win the Joke of the Day award! How else can one react to the absurd charge in the Pakistani media blaming India's Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) for the match fixing scandal. The reason, it claims, is India wants to oust Pakistan from international cricket!

Pakistani newspaper, Daily Mail, carried a story with the title 'The Lord's episode another RAW ploy'. It says International Cricket Council's chief Sharad Pawar has been working to get the Pakistan team banned for three to five years and the bookie, Mazhar Majeed, is a RAW man, who was introduced to Indian cricket by RAW officials.

The report further says: "The bookie met Pakistan players in South Africa at a dinner for the first time in 2009. The English journalist got 50,000 pounds to organise the fake sting operation from RAW and the Indian High Commission in London played a key role in the bookie's bail."

According to the report, Pawar and Scotland Yard are making futile efforts to involve Pakistani players in spot-fixing with the desire of a 2-3 years ban on Pakistan. The ICC chief and its members, who work for RAW, were the masterminds behind all this planned mess, with special focus on ending the career of new teenage pace sensation Mohammad Amir, the report alleges.

The report also says that the picture of Salman Butt along with bookie and some reporter is clearly fabricated. Furthermore, the video of the bookie, Majeed giving a jacket containing the pounds to Wahab Riaz is also fabricated, the paper claims. The Daily Mail's report says that the bookie is a RAW front man and holds a key position in RAW's illicit fund generation programs. He was merely a ticket tout at movie theatres in Mumbai till a few years back when he was handpicked by RAW, like they did it in the Chhota Rajan case, and was put under the command of RAW's Special Operations Division SOD, headed by Rajan, where he was trained for sports betting.

The report further indicates that Majeed was introduced to different bookies at Mumbai, Delhi, Johannesburg, Cape Town and Dubai by RAW officials. In 2007, RAW arranged Majeed's meeting with India's star players, like Sachin Tendulkar, Harbhajan Singh and Rahul Dravid, so that they could further introduce Majeed to different players of other teams -- especially Pakistan and other top cricketers around the world, like Shane Watson.

The British police is currently carrying out investigation into allegations that players Salman Butt, Mohammad Amir and Mohammad Asif took bribes to fix incidents during the fourth Test against England last week.

TV reports suggest Butt and Asif were in big debts after buying palatial homes costing a few crores. The three players had been kept out of ODIs, though the Pakistan High Commissioner in London said the players should be considered innocent until proved guilty. He also dismissed the sting operation and video images shown all over the world as unconvincing. Pakistan specializes in a denial mode whenever caught playing a dubious role, like in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack.

-Asian Tribune-