ISLAMABAD – February 4 (ONLINE): Former Olympian Rashid-ul-Hassan has been awarded with a ten-year ban for criticizing Prime Minister Imran Khan on a social media platform, it emerged Friday.
According to media reports, the Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) banned Olympian for his ‘abusive’ language against Prime Minister Imran Khan, who is also the patron-in-chief of PHF.
Rashid received his gold-medal at 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games.
According to media reports, a PHF inquiry committee was setup to see whether the Olympian had used any ‘offensive’ language against the Prime Minister.
After Rashid did not respond to two notices issued to him on the matter, the committee on PHF president’s instructions imposed the ten-year ban. The copy of the notification has also been sent to National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Sports.
Rashid, while responding to the decision denied allegations and said that he did not use any abusive language against country’s chief executive and PHF’s patron-in-chief.
He said that he would legally challenge the decision made by inquiry committee. As a citizen of the country, Rashid added, he had the right to speak, but “I didn’t use any abusive language”, a private news channel quoted Rashid as saying.
“On a WhatsApp group I only said that on the container though Imran Khan was claiming that he would put the game of hockey on the right track, nothing came on the surface during the last three years. And I also said Imran will not do any good work for hockey,” the Olympian remarked while giving his clarification, according to the news channel.
Expressing his surprise over the ban announced by the PHF, Rashid said currently he was not even holding any position in the federation.
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