New Delhi: Explosive allegations against Pakistan cricket team and delegation. RVS Mani, former Under Secretary of the Union Home Ministry, alleged that drug smuggling was a regular occurrence among Pakistani cricket teams and delegations visiting India. In this context, he mentioned the names of Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif. The two former cricketers were banned by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) in 2006 for taking the banned drug ‘nandrolone’.

The Pakistan Cricket Board’s (PCB) Drugs Tribunal banned Akhtar for two years and Asif for one year after being found guilty of using the banned anabolic steroid ‘nandrolone’ in a dope test.

In late September 2006, PCB’s internal doping tests of both the players came back positive. They were later dropped from Pakistan’s squad ahead of the team’s opening match against Sri Lanka in Jaipur during the Champions Trophy held in India.

Mani, who was in the Ministry of Home Affairs between 2006-2010, told news agency ANI, “We reported an incident of Pakistani cricketers Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif. After admitting that they had drugs, the Pakistani High Commissioner sent them back to the country. That is the real incident or manipulation. That is the whole scenario. Whenever the Pakistani team or delegation came to India, they smuggled drugs here.” He said, “Smuggling drugs into India is an official policy of Pakistan. Those involved are well-known and influential people. There were other members of that group in Pakistan too—whose names may not have been made public, but the whole group was made up of such people and they were doing it.”

Mani also alleged that the death of Pakistan’s former coach Bob Ulmer may have been linked to the arrest of drug-trafficking by Pakistan players. 58-year-old coach Bob Ulmer was found unconscious in a hotel room in Kingston (Jamaica) hours after Pakistan’s unexpected defeat to Ireland in the 2007 Cricket World Cup and was later pronounced dead. He claimed that according to a then (2006) estimate by the Defense Intelligence Agency under the Ministry of Defence, about 30 percent of the money required for terrorist attacks in India came from the drug trade.