Indian cricket fans sweat under security cover (28 January 1999)

28 January 1999

Indian cricket fans sweat under security cover

AFP

MADRAS, India, Jan 28 (AFP) - Some 30,000 cricket fans, champing at the prospect of Pakistan's first Test on Indian soil in 12 years, were forced to endure lengthy security checks Thursday at the heavily-guarded Chepauk ground.

Even though Hindu militants have withdrawn their threats to disrupt the matches, some 6,000 security personnel were on hand in and outside the ground on the first day.

Their presence only added to the traditional tension created by the rare cricket clashes between the two South Asian rivals.

Long queues at the stadium entrances were still moving slowly an hour after the start, as each spectator was frisked and food packets and water bottles checked thoroughly before being allowed in.

There were two more checkpoints before the fan could claim his seat in the stands, where gun-toting commandos and plain-clothes police cast a stern shadow over the proceedings.

The team buses, which reached the ground two hours before the start, were accompanied by a host of escort vehicles during the 20-minute drive from their downtown hotel.

"I have never seen anything like this before," said 65-year-old Krishnan Ramamurthy, who has not missed a single Test match at the ground since 1961.

"But these are not normal times and this is no ordinary match. I pray that all the action is confined only to the field."

On Wednesday, even the media was barred from attending the match-eve training sessions of both teams.

The precautions were deemed necessary following threats by Hindu fundamentalists to disrupt the Test series in protest at Pakistan's support for Moslem separatists in Kashmir.

The militants withdrew the threat just hours before the tourists' plane touched down in India, but the organisers are taking no chances.

The security for the Pakistani team is supervised by Yashovardhan Azad, an Indian intelligence officer and brother of former Test star Kirti Azad.

Azad will travel with the team through the two-month tour, along with Amrit Mathur, a representative of the Indian cricket board.

No visitor is allowed on the second and third floors of the luxury Taj Coromandal hotel where the teams are staying without the written permission of Azad. Calls to cricketers are screened before they are put through.

The arrangements for the tour are monitored by a central control room set up in New Delhi under the charge of Nikhil Kumar, a senior Indian intelligence bureaucrat.

Source :: AFP