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Nabbed bookies ‘threatened’ Zulqarnain

SIALKOT — Pakistani police said on Wednesday that arrested bookmakers had confessed to being behind death threats to former national wicket-keeper Zulqarnain Haider.

The 25-year-old abandoned the team in Dubai last November and fled to London, saying he had received death threats from bookies who wanted him to fix a match.

Haider said he was retiring from international cricket and applied for political asylum in Britain, but returned home on Monday after the Pakistani government gave assurances about his safety and that of his family.

“We have arrested eight bookies and some of them have revealed they were behind threats to Haider,” police official Nasir Qureshi told AFP from the town of Sialkot, 120 miles (190 kilometres) southeast of the capital Islamabad.

“We have confiscated their data which has a number of international contacts and the investigation is still on.”

Qureshi said an official press conference could be called on Thursday.

“We have found a number of satellite telephones and diaries which have international contacts and we hope to get further details in the next 24 hours,” he added. Haider last week announced that he was prepared to revoke his application for asylum.