No security team with Indian cricket squad: Advani

NEW DELHI, Feb 17 (UNI) Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani today clarified that no security team would accompany the Indian cricket team on their forthcoming tour to Pakistan.

Earlier, it reported likely that the Indian cricket team, taking a cue from their South African counterparts, would arrive in Pakistan with its own security personnel.

The Pakistan Cricket Board had also not ruled out this possibility.

But Advani today denied that possibility and said, "I am surprised about the newspaper report that security people from India will be going to Pakistan to provide inner security cover to the players." It is the responsibility of the host country to make security arrangements for the visiting team, he told reporters at a function organised at BJP president M Venkaiah Naidu's residence here to induct former Madhya Pradesh chief minister and governor Govind Narayan Singh.

Advani added that he had spoken to home ministry officials with regard to the media reports on an Indian security team accompanying the cricket time and they had told him that there was no such proposal.

Asked if he had received a report by the three-member BCCI team, which returned from Pakistan yesterday, Advani said he was surprised why the home ministry was being dragged into the matter.

The deputy prime minister said the government had already cleared the Indian cricket team's tour to Pakistan and the home ministry had no role to play in the matter.

Advani said during his recent visit to Lucknow he had met Indian cricket skipper Sourav Ganguly and wicketkeeper Parthiv Patel, both of whom had told him that they were looking forward to play in Pakistan.