LAHORE – A day after the Punjab Police arrested World Snooker Champion Ahsan Ramzan, abused him and detained him, Lahore Capital City Police Officer (CCPO) Bilal Siddique Kamyana said he has ordered an inquiry into the incident.
Talking to the media along with Ahsan Ramzan and Sports Minister Wahab Riaz, Kamyana said the Cantonment superintendent of police (SP) was looking into Ahsan’s allegations of police high-handedness and the findings will be out by tomorrow.
Speaking on the occasion, Wahab Riaz said everyone was bound to follow the timings set by the government for the snooker clubs.
Answering reporters’ questions, Ahsan said he was thankful to the authorities for taking this issue up. He said the police had encouraged him and promised it will not happen again. He said the authorities have promised to resolve the issue of snooker clubs’ timings.
Taking advantage of media’s presence, Ahsan said it was promised that he would be given a world-class snooker table and venue to nourish the talent, but the promise has not been fulfilled yet. Secondly, he said, the player who recently won the Junior World Squash Championship was given Rs10 million as reward for his achievement. He said that he won the Senior World Snooker Championship and he was given a mere Rs900,000 as reward for his achievement. He said there is a huge difference in this prize money and all champions should be treated equally.
On Thursday night, Green Town police in Lahore raided a snooker club, which was operating late at night and arrested Ahsan. They took him to the police station, put him in the lockup and hurled abuses at him.
Ahsan said he told the police multiple times that he is a Snooker World Champion but the police did not ‘listen’ to him and policemen continued abusing him. In a picture now circulating on social media, Ahsan can be seen fixing his belt right outside the lockup where he was detained.
