City sportspersons demand action

LUCKNOW: About 300 sportspersons onTuesday handed over a memorandum to the district magistrate, demanding earlyarrest of the killers of former junior international cricketer TanveerAkhtar.Twenty four-year-old Akhtar, who had toured West Indies and Englandwith the Indian schools team, was shot dead by two unidentified persons at hisRDSO residence on Saturday afternoon.Akhtar had returned from his NorthernRailway office for lunch, when his neighbour, on hearing a gun shot, came outand saw two youths running down the stairs, followed by Akhtar with bloodgushing out from the abdomen. Soon he collapsed and died.Since his death,the police have been groping in the dark even about the possible motive behindthe murder, let alone trying to catch the killers.Irked at theinefficiency of the police, the local sportsmen planned to take out a peacemarch from the ‘Babu’ Stadium to the Vidhan Bhawan. But they werenot allowed to take out the procession by the district administration in theafternoon. Later, Ashok Bambi, Mazhar Ali Ansari, RSO Nar Singh Prasad,Siraj Khan, Ratnesh Mishra and Haider Raza, representing the city players,handed over a memorandum to the district magistrate Navneet Sehgal. The DM had atalk with SSP BB Bakshi and assured the players that the police would try tosolve the case within seven days.Meanwhile, the police denied reports thattheir was any type of suspicion on close friends of Akhtar. A neighbour andclose friend of Akhtar was called to the police station for generalqueries.