International Basketball referee TP Subramanian passes away in Mumbai

Former international basketball referee, T P Subramanian, died aged 76 in Mumbai.

"He had lung related problems and was being treated in the hospital for a month before he was brought home last week. He died in his sleep on Thursday morning," said his son on Saturday. Subramanian, a retired Deputy Commissioner of Central Excise, had even officiated in the Asian Games, according to people who were close to him in the basketball fraternity.

He was considered a strict referee and once sent former India captain Abbas Moontasir off the court in a local tournament in the late 1970s after a verbal altercation. It led to the ace hoopster being banned for a few years by the Maharashtra basketball body along with his then Western Railway teammate, the late Javed Akhtar.

Moontasir, considered as among top players in his time in Asia, returned as a player after the ban was lifted, but Akhtar's career as a hoopster came to a close with the ban.