Bandipora: The locals of Bandipora town have threatened to launch an agitation against J&K government over establishing of Indoor stadium in Sumbal part of the district.
The Union minister of state for youth affairs and sports, Vijay Goel, recently announced a special development package of Rs 200 crore for sports in Jammu and Kashmir which is under implementation.
The package includes establishing of indoor stadium for Bandipora district at Sumbal.
However, residents of Bandipora town feel alienated after it came to fore that an indoor stadium has been sanctioned for Sumbal.
The decision has been taken against our interest, an enthusiastic table tennis player from Plan, Bandipora said. This is despite the fact our area brought laurels to whole J&K when Tajamul-ul-Islam, 08 year old girl of the town, won Gold in Kickboxing championship in Italy.
After Tajam-ul Islam, another little champ Hashim Mansoor brought gold medal to the town in the Asian Karate Championship held at the Talkatora stadium in New Delhi.
Many locals of the area are of the view that the district headquarter is deliberately neglected by the current coalition government led by PDP-BJP.
Indoor stadium should be at district headquarters but I think it is weakness of our representatives, who are not paying attention towards their constituencies, said Shiekh Aijaz, Manager Sports Club Bandipora.
It may be noted here that Bandipora constituency is represented by Congressman Usman Majeed, however, the current government has three top figures from the district, one among them being an influential minister as well.
Being hub of sports talent, the Indore stadium should have been established in the main town. This is very unfortunate, said Coach of Tajamul-ul-Islam and Hashim Mansoor Master Fasil Ali.
If those at helm dont reconsider their decision we will come on streets against it, said popular footballer from Bandipora, Tahir Maqbool.
When contacted, District Commissioner Bandipora, Sajad Hussain Ganie who is also the chairman of District Sports Council, said, due to non-availability of land in the district headquarter, we decided to establish the indoor stadium in Sumbal Tehsil but If anybody can identify land for stadium in main town we will establish another here.
While rejecting the claims of DC that land was not available for the stadium the MLA Bandipora,Usman Majeed said, the DC is lying. We identified 55 kanals of land for Indoor stadium years ago in Sonarwani (03 km away from the town) and the DC knows that we could have established the stadium in 7-8 kanals and rest would have been used for other sports activities, he said.
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