Aqil pledges to remove sense of deprivation among sportsmen
Bureau Report

PESHAWAR—Designated NWFP Sports Minister Syed Aqil Shah Thursday pledged to remove sense of deprivation of the sportsmen and women of NWFP by initiating a solid program for their uplift and promotion of sports in the province.
In his first comments to APP, after being tipped as Minister for Sports and Culture, Tourism by the ANP, Syed Aqil Shah, President NWFP Olympic Association and an ardent supporter of sports activities in the Frontier Province, said that the youth are very important part of the society but they have been kept deprived on one pretext or the other in the past. “It will be strong endeavor to provide at least the facilities available to the players of other provinces to the NWFP”, he maintained.
The NWFP has bestowed with enormous sports potential, which could not be properly explored by the previous successive regimes, and with little effort and polish, their hidden talent could be brought to mainstream of sports activities. Other provinces have lot of sports extravaganza whereas the NWFP has no proper sporting facilities to groom the budding players, he maintained.
Above all, the designated sports minister said, the previous government of the MMA, he said, inflicted severe blow to the sports activities, as the promotion of sports was last on their agenda item.
The MMA had imposed ban on social activities like cultural shows etc and had shut Nishtar hall. There was no festivity in the previous regime while the new coalition government in the province will provide the youth with all the positive and healthy activities to end the suffocation they had passed through the previous regimes, Aqil Shah maintained.
Outlining his priorities, Aqil Shah said, he was planning to expand the sports infrastructure at the district level and to revive the sporting activities in the schools where today it is almost dead. The increasing sports at school level, he opined would help to generate an healthy society besides curtailing the social ills like drugs addiction etc. “It is of paramount importance that youth should be imbibed with the spirit of tolerance, sportsmanship and the lust to achieve something for their motherland”, he said.
In reply to a question, he said, he would not compromise on the rights of the players, adding in the past the province could not hold the scheduled games due to lack of funds and non-cooperation of the then governments.He assured that at least in his tenure as Sports Minister no such sports tourney would be either cancelled or dropped due to lack of funds.
Aqil, who is also President of Pakistan Wrestling Federation and Vice President of Pakistan Olympic Association expressed the determination to develop sports culture in the province on sound footings so that to have once again players of international repute as the NWFP produced in the past including Jehangir Khan, Jansher Khan, Qamar Zaman, Test cricketers, hockey Olympians, Olympian in other Games.
“The province got unique honor of producing 7 World Champion in one Game,” he said. “We are from sports world and we know how to improve it so with the grace of God I will do my level best to overcome all the miseries facing by sportsmen,” Aqil said.