LEEDS: The International Cricket Council (ICC) has a policy of not encouraging messages of the political kind. That has suffered a blow of sorts during the course of this World Cup. In Leeds, for the second time in a week, planes flew over the ground with very clear political messages.
The India-Sri Lanka match was in its early stages when an aircraft flew by with a balloon kind of a thing attached to it which read “Justice for Kashmir”. A little while later, there was another which read “India stop genocide and free Kashmir.”
A few days ago during the Pakistan-Afghanistan match, there was another aircraft flying by with the words “Justice for Baluchistan”. Violation of air space rules? Violation of norms as far as spreading such messages are concerned? There are questions without answers.
The ICC released a statement saying they are disappointed and put the ball in the court of the local police. "We are incredibly disappointed this has happened again. We do not condone any sort of political messages at the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup. Throughout the tournament, we have worked with local police forces around the country to prevent this type of protest occurring. After the previous incident we were assured by West Yorkshire Police there would not be repeat of this issue, so we are very dissatisfied it has happened again.”
Other than messages of the political kind, there is also an aspect of security attached to incidents of aircrafts flying over the ground. That, of course, concerns the local police and relevant authorities more than the ICC. Till the time of writing this, there was no statement on their behalf.
After the incident during the Pakistan-Afghanistan game, the ICC had said: “We work with local police forces around the country to prevent this type of incident occurring and were assured that given Headlingly is under the flight path for the Leeds Bradford Airport it would not be an issue. We do not condone any sort of political messages at the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup and will work with West Yorkshire police to deal with and understand why this has happened and to ensure it does not happen again.”