By Iqbal Khattak
PESHAWAR, Pakistan -- Shazia Malik spends three to five hours every day training to achieve her goal: a gold medal in cycling at the 31st National Games in Peshawar, scheduled for March 25-31.
Organisers postponed the Games last November after threats to players and officials.
Some 5,000 male and female athletes will participate while 2,000 technical officials will supervise 27 events at 18 different venues in Peshawar, Islamabad, Abbottabad and Mardan. Besides four provincial and different departmental teams, Federally Administered Tribal Areas and Islamabad teams will also feature at the country’s biggest sporting gala.
Malik, 27, is living with “death threats” from suspected Islamic militants. But she has not stopped training for the gold she is eyeing.
“Life and death are in the hands of God. That is what my belief is. I am exercising every day in the hope I will win gold”, she told Central Asia Online.
Living in a suburb of Peshawar where militants from the Darra Adamkhel semi-autonomous southern region have penetrated as they close in on the city, she disguises herself, gives out a fictitious home address and takes other precautions.
“Stop exercising”, anonymous callers warned her by phone. “If you do not heed our warnings, you either be bombed or stricken by a suicider”.
But Malik is undeterred. She proved her mettle during the last Inter-Provincial Games held in Peshawar in November 2008, when she clinched two gold medals.
After her splendid performance in that contest, she received a job offer from the Water and Power Development Authority and will represent it at the National Games. Players representing departmental teams tend to win more medals than those representing provinces because of better training facilities.
The Taliban’s ongoing attacks have impacted sports as much the education and business sectors. This danger had made Pakistan a “no-go” country for foreign athletes. As a result, the Pakistani cricket team now plays home matches in neutral venues such as the United Arab Emirates.
“Militancy has affected cricket, which is very much followed in this country, more than any other game”, Shakeel Khan, spokesman for the Pakistan Cricket Board, told Central Asia Online. He added that the board has lost millions of rupees in revenue because it had to give up its home games.
Extremists see the presence of foreign teams in Pakistan as an opportunity to attack them. In 2002, the New Zealand cricket team escaped a suicide attack targeting French naval engineers in Karachi.
On March 3, 2009, militants attacked the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore with rocket launchers, automatic assault rifles and hand grenades. The episode would have proved disastrous if the team's driver hadn't floored the accelerator and delivered his charges to safety. Still, the attack killed six policemen and another driver and injured eight of the players.
Even Pakistani cricket teams are unwilling to play in Peshawar because of its rampant militancy. Instead the Peshawar team has to travel more than 1,600km to play matches in the southern port city of Karachi.
“For the past two years, no team from any other city has been willing to come to play scheduled national tournament matches in Peshawar”, Asghar Khan, secretary of the Peshawar District Cricket Association, told Central Asia Online. Arbab Niaz Cricket Stadium has not hosted an international match since 2006.
Islamic militants killed several players at a volleyball match in southern Lakki Marwat district near South and North Waziristan January 1 when a suicide bomber exploded his vehicle, killing more than 100 people.
“It was a big tragedy resulting in the killing of several volleyball players”, Shahid Kamal, secretary of the NWFP Volleyball Association, said as he coached players at the Peshawar Sports Complex, venue of the 31st National Games. “Frustration creeps into the youth when they do not play any sports, and that's what the militants want: that youth become frustrated and join the Taliban”.
Moments before the colourful closing ceremony of the Inter-Provincial Games in Peshawar in November 2008, a suicide bomber blew himself up outside the main gate of the Qayyum Sports Complex, killing several. No players or organisers were among the killed.
Like Malik, organisers worry about security, leading the government to launch Operation Spring Clearing in the southern and western peripheries of Peshawar, in which paramilitaries neutralise terrorist safe havens.
“We know the government is fully aware of the security threats and that it is making every effort to provide foolproof security for the National Games”, Zulfiqar Ali Butt, the Games’ organising secretary, said to Central Asia Online.
Senior police official Muhammad Karim Khan acknowledged “direct threats” to the National Games but vowed to make the event a success. “We have a security plan and will depute as many cops as they need", he said.
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