Ashis Ray & Agencies
London: The 15-month saga of spotfixing in cricket reached a sordid climax when the three convicted Pakistan players were handed jail terms by a London court for the scandal which the judge said had damaged the integrity of the game in the eyes of the world.
The three became the first international cricketers to be imprisoned for on-field actions.
Former captain and opening batsman Salman Butt, 27, was sentenced to 30 months in custody, pace bowler Mohammad Asif, 28, got a prison term of one year while the 19-year-old fast bowling prodigy, Mohammad Aamer, was sent for six months to a correctional facility due to his young age.
London-based sports agent Mazhar Majeed, 36, who was found guilty of paying the three players for bowling no-balls on demand during the Lord’s Test against England in August last year, received the longest term behind bars – 32 months.
All four were allowed to serve half their term outside prison on ‘licence’, which meant their conduct would be monitored during the rest of the sentence period. If any of the convicts violates the licence restrictions, he would be sent back to prison. While Butt, Asif and Majeed are expected to begin their sentences at Wandsworth prison in south London, Aamer is due to be sent to the Feltham young offenders’ institute in west London.
The lawyers of Butt and Aamer said they would appeal against the ruling.
Delivering the sentences, judge Jeremy Cooke said Butt had got a harsher punishment than the other two players because he was “responsible for corrupting Aamer”.
CRIME & PUNISHMENT Families still back tainted cricketers
On Wednesday, the lawyer for Aamer, who had pleaded guilty, had presented an unqualified apology for his involvement in the scandal, saying his stupidity had brought him down.
Justice Cooke, sitting in a crowded courtroom at London’s Southwark crown court provided an indication at the very outset of his pronouncement that he was not going to be lenient. He said the offences ‘regardless of pleas, were so serious that only imprisonment will suffice’.
Butt, Asif and Aamer, already banned from playing by the International Cricket Council (ICC) for 10, seven and five years, respectively, showed no reaction as the sentences were handed out amid strong words from the judge who said they had tainted a game known for its fairness.
“‘It’s not cricket’ was an adage,” judge Cooke said. “It is the insidious effect of your actions on professional cricket and the followers of it thatmake the offences so serious.” The prosecutors had argued during the 21-day trial that the case revealed rampant corruption at the heart of international cricket.
While the cricketers’ grieving families back home maintained they were innocent, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) made it clear that the three should expect no help.
“There is little sympathy in Pakistan for the sorry pass they have come to,” PCB spokesman Nadeem Sarwa said. “The conviction and sentencing of some Pakistani Test players is a sad day for Pakistan cricket.”
Conserving past for the future
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
Hyderabad: About 30 people from different government and private agencies are attending a workshop at the State Archives and Research Institute (SARI) to learn about saving rare documents, particularly manuscripts, books written on paper as well as palm leaves.
These people after finishing the five-day workshop that began on Wednesday would be able to share their newly acquired knowledge with colleagues in their respective institutes.
Sari director Zareena Parveen told TOI on Thursday that Andhra Pradesh is one of the biggest repositories of old documents in the country. It is rich in documents in Sanskrit, Persian, Arabic, Urdu, Telugu and other languages. “The Government of India has realized the importance of saving this heritage and has set up a branch of National Mission for Manuscript (NMM) at our institute. The NMM set up the Manuscript Conservation Centre at our institute about six months back. SARI and MCC have collaborated to organize this workshop on ‘Preventive and curative conservation of historical palm leaves and paper manuscripts.’ We believe the efforts which are being made here would go a long way in conserving the past for the present and future generations,” she said.
Former vice-chancellor of Osmania University Sulaiman Siddiqui told the participants that the records at SARI and other repositories are facing the danger of extinction as the number of people who could read, understand and analyze the old forms of languages such as Sanskrit, Persian, Arabic, Telugu etc. are alarmingly declining.
Siddiqui believed that the Centre should allocate sufficient funds for the training of experts in the field of conservation along with encouraging students to acquire expertise in reading and understanding old forms of languages. He also felt that rare manuscripts should not only be conserved but uploaded for the benefit of users, especially research scholars.
He disclosed that the records related to the entire Asaf Jahi period and also from Mughal period (Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb) are found at SARI.
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