/ 18 November 2003

Hunt is on after cricket threat

Pakistani police said on Tuesday they have launched a hunt for an e-mailer whose threatening message to New Zealand cricketers jeopardised their tour to Pakistan.

Karachi police chief Asad Ashraf Malik said the e-mail, which threatened violence if the Kiwis played matches during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, was traced to an internet café in the eastern city Lahore.

”Police have questioned staff of the café and they are now looking for the suspect,” Malik said. He could it was too early to say if an organised group was behind the threat.

The e-mail, sent to cricketer Craig McMillan, prompted him and three teammates to pull out of the tour which was originally to start on November 22, five days before the end of Ramadan.

The Pakistan Cricket Board on Monday postponed the tour by one week so that it will start on November 27. It is still waiting for a final decision from New Zealand Cricket on the tour.

The Black Caps are due to play five one-day matches to make up for last year’s tour, which was abandoned after a suicide bomber killed 14 people outside the team’s hotel in Karachi in May.

South Africa in September became the first western side to tour Pakistan in 15 months after the 2002 bomb attack and subsequent anti-Western terror strikes kept foreign teams away.

They played under heavy security, with Karachi and Peshawar dropped from the itinerary because of the perceived risk. — Sapa-AFP