- Tuesday, February 25, 2025
The match will be played in Ranchi between February 23 and 27.
By: Shubham Ghosh
SECURITY was tightened in Ranchi in the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand following threats from Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a US-based Sikh separatist leader designated a terrorist by India, to disrupt the fourth Test match between India and England starting Friday (23), officials said.
Pannun allegedly issued a video appeal on social media urging the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist) to intervene and disrupt the match, the officials added.
The fourth Test will be played at the JSCA International Stadium Complex. Both the teams arrived in the city on Tuesday (20). The hosts are leading the five-match series 2-1 at the moment following their thumping 434-run victory in the third match in Rajkot.
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“Gurupatwant Singh Pannun has threatened the India and England teams to cancel the match in Ranchi. He also urged the CPI (Maoist) to create disturbance in a bid to cancel the match.
“An FIR has been lodged against him at Dhurwa police station under the IT Act and investigation has been initiated,” a top police officer told reporters on Tuesday.
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This is not the first time that Pannun has threatened to disrupt a high-profile cricket match in India. He had issued a similar threat to disrupt the 50-over World Cup final between India and Australia in Ahmedabad in the western state of Gujarat last November, which saw the security agencies and the local police briefing up security.
Pannun has been on the radar of India’s National Investigation Agency (NIA) since 2019, when the anti-terror federal agency registered its first case against the “designated individual terrorist”, who has been spreading fear and terror in the northern state of Punjab and elsewhere in the country through threats and intimidation tactics.
Non-bailable warrants of arrest were issued against Pannun by the Special NIA Court on February 3, 2021, and he was declared a “Proclaimed Offender” on November 29 last year.
Tightening its noose around the US and Canada-based Pannun, the NIA had in September last year confiscated a house and land of the self-styled general counsel of the outlawed Sikhs for Justice outfit in Punjab’s Amritsar and the Union Territory of Chandigarh.
Late last year, the United States’ federal prosecutors alleged that two Indian nationals, including a government employee, were involved in a plot to eliminate Pannun on American soil. Indian prime minister Narendra Modi said in December that New Delhi was ready to look into the matter if any Indian citizen did anything good or bad.
(With agency inputs)
