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Sena activists ruin pitch at Ferozeshah Kotla

Activists of the Shiv Sena on Wednesday night damaged the cricket pitch at Ferozeshah Kotla stadium, venue of the first cricket Test match against Pakistan.

In an act of open defiance against the central government, four activists of the Shiv Sena scaled the walls of the stadium at 11 pm, and dug up the pitch, after which they called up newspaper offices and television studios to inform them of the vandalism. When the police landed up on the scene to arrest them, the Sena activists shouted slogans against Pakistan, and declared their intention to disrupt the Indo-Pak series at any cost.

The four activists have since been taken into custody.

The act is reminiscent of the Sena damaging the pitch at Wankhede Stadium in Bombay in 1991, in protest against the then imminent Indo-Pak tie in the city. This is also the first time that the Sena has indulged in an open act of defiance in cricketing matters outside Maharashtra, and comes in the wake of the recent attacks by its activists against theatres in the national capital screening Deepa Mehta's much-acclaimed Fire.

The Bharatiya Janata Party, both at the Centre where it is the main ruling party of a coalition involving the Sena, as well as in Maharashtra where it is a junior alliance partner, has maintained that it will offer full security to the visiting Pakistani cricket team.

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