In April 2017, Hong Kong team gave a walkover to Pakistan due to security reasons.
With Sports Minister Kiren Rijiju making it clear on Monday that the government can only have a say in clearing bilateral tours with Pakistan and not events organised by international bodies, the All India Tennis Association (AITA) has asked the world tennis body (ITF) to conduct another security check before taking a final call.
"I have already made it clear. Any bilateral match with Pakistan will have to get clearance from the government but if it is a multilateral event organised by international bodies, then we cannot take our own isolated stand," Rijiju said during an event on Monday.
However, Rijiju immediately clarified that "security issue is completely different from the game".
"Any bilateral match with Pakistan must have a political sanction, otherwise I just cannot go on commenting on every match," added the sports minister.
AITA general secretary Hironmoy Chatterjee said that the onus is now on the ITF (International Tennis Federation) to decide whether India will tour Pakistan, after inspecting whether the situation is conducive or not.
"Let the ITF decide on the ground realities there. Pakistan have severed diplomatic ties with India and our team may not even get visas to travel there," said Chatterjee: "If Pakistan refuse visas, then their team will be penalised, not ours."
AITA also feels that since the Davis Cup draw was rolled out in February this year, before the dreaded Pulwama attack on February 14, ITF may be convinced with its request of shifting the tie to neutral venue due to the rising tensions between the two neighbouring countries ever since.
"We feel atmosphere is not conducive to play in Pakistan. That's why decided to write to the ITF to provide a neutral venue for the tie. ITF will put it before the Davis Cup committee and I hope they will accept AITA's reasonable request," added the AITA secretary.
No Indian Davis Cup team has travelled to Pakistan since 1964 and bilateral cricket ties between the two countries have been suspended since the 2008 terror attack in Mumbai.
On the other hand, the Pakistan Davis Cup team has played four of the five home ties since 2017 in Islamabad only, hosting Korea, Thailand, Uzbekistan and Iran. In April 2017, Hong Kong team gave a walkover to Pakistan due to security reasons.
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