Jammu cops 'quiz' Ranji players at midnight

Horrors of Bangalore were recast in Jammu when police barged into the hotel of the Jammu and Kashmir Ranji trophy team and “questioned the players for hours” on Tuesday night.

Team sources said a posse of the J&K police entered into the hotel at midnight and started the search operations. J&K cricket team is currently playing in the ongoing Ranji trophy in the winter capital Jammu. The police presence in the hotel caused a scare among the team members who were sleeping ahead of their crucial match on Wednesday.

Samiullah Beigh, one of the senior members of the team, later took to the Facebook to narrate the ordeal the players suffered during the night. “Could not sleep whole night....Police came to search our hotel at midnight and questioned us for hours at 1:15am in the night, he wrote on his Facebook page.

Beigh noted that the players are reeling under a shock after the incident. “We don’t lock our doors as only our Ranji trophy team stays in that hotel. We are still feeling the shock and horror of finding uniformed people with guns surrounding us when we were fast asleep,” he said.

The team member rued the attitude of the police which came at the midnight. “Whether deliberate harassment or routine check up. Surely this is not the way to treat bunch of guys with national and international repute, especially when you are playing the most important match of the J&K cricket history,” he said.

Beigh also underlined the mental trauma suffered by the players during the police action.
“Honestly I am not expecting any wonders today (Wednesday). We may easily loose the game and hence the chances of our qualification to the quarterfinals may vanish,” he said.

The police action revived the ghost of October 2009 when Bangalore police detained Parvez Rasool (J&K Ranji team captain) on suspected terror charges, just days before his match in the under-22 CK Naidu tournament. Bangalore police had suspected him of carrying explosives, which was later negated by the forensic tests.

IGP, Jammu Zone, Rajesh Kumar however said it was routine search of most of the hotels in the area. “Nobody was targeted. It was routine search. Most of the hotels in the area were searched and not any particular hotel,” he said.