Shopian: Playing with their own lives and those of others, people in Shopian are attending in large numbers cricket and volley tournaments that are being held in the district while the death toll in J&K due to Covid-19 has crossed the 222 mark and scores of patients are battling for life in hospitals.
The number of Covid-19 cases in the district has reached near 1,000 and 17 deaths have taken place, which is the second highest among districts in south Kashmir and fourth in Jammu and Kashmir.
At dozens of places where there are playgrounds, cricket and volleyball teams are daily taking part in local tournaments with players coming from different districts. The places where such tournaments are going on include Shamispora, Bembipora, Dangam, Turkwangam, Pinjora, Trenz, Zainpora and many other villages in the district.
According to locals of Kachdora village, a volleyball tournament was concluded recently with a huge gathering of locals from many villages, including Kulgam as the opponent team was from Kulgam. “Though it was organised in the name of a slain player who died a couple of months ago but the huge gathering and the hugging of winners was completely against the guidelines issued in wake of Covid-19,” a local, wishing not to be named, told Kashmir Reader. The video of the said final went viral on social media showing a huge gathering with nobody wearing a mask nor maintaining physical distance.
Similar crowding is also being witnessed during other big tournaments in the district.
Health experts believe that such tournaments would result in rapid spread of the Covid-19 infection.
“Crowding at this time during sports events is worrisome and not allowed,” Chief Medical Officer Shopian Dr Ramesh told Kashmir Reader. He said that there are strict advisories in this regard and people must follow it to help in containing the spread of the virus.
“When people from different areas meet at one place without knowing their disease status and contact history, it transmits the virus in the community,” Dr Ramesh said.
At places, the tournament forms served to the teams read that the events are being sponsored by the government’s youth welfare and sports department, which if true raises questions on the seriousness of the authorities to contain Covid-19 transmission.
Gulzar Ahmad, a cricketer, said that people should give preference to life at this time. “I used to take part in many cricket matches but not nowadays because of this virus. It is quite common for people to throng to such events and cheer for their favourite team or village team and if they win, go and hug them,” he said, adding tha players also cannot use masks during a game.
A senior revenue official told Kashmir Reader that organising such events at this time is bizarre and the youth must shun these events. “If needed, such people will be penalised as per relevant sections of law,” he said, while urging people to follow government advisories instead of paying heeds to rumours.
Shahbaz Ahmad Bodha, assistant commissioner revenue Shopian, told Kashmir Reader that such sports events aren’t being organised by the government. “I will seek a report from youth welfare and sports department and will also issue an order to make sure such tournaments shouldn’t be organised till the pandemic is here,” he said.
“I will also tell the concerned department to strictly inform all such organisers to stop such tournaments and crowding,” he added.
Gurmeet Singh, district sports officer, said that no such event is being organised by their department, except a few online tournaments for which they have approval of the sports directorate. “No such complaint of locally organised tournament was brought to us. I will look into the matter to stop such events,” he said.

Raashid Hassan