Three private planes flying over the Headingly stadium when India were playing Sri Lanka on Saturday, created a tizzy in newsrooms when they carried two politically motivated banners on their tail, one saying “India stop genocide and free Kashmir” and the other coming in a few hours later, saying “Help end mob lynching in India.” The third one flew over the venue just after Rohit had hit his fifth century in the tournament. That one came with a conciliatory banner saying, “Love Cricket, Love Mumtaz Leeds”.
The planes had taken off from Bradford and were headed to Leeds. The stadium falls under the unrestricted airspace and locals say it is a common more by private passengers, especially during football matches, to carry banners but they have not been politically inclined thus far.
This was the second such incident at the event. Another banner was flown over the same ground in Leeds during last week’s match between Pakistan and Afghanistan saying “Justice for Balochistan”. That had sparked off fan skirmishes in the stand triggering a police probe.
A perturbed ICC issued a statement saying: “We are incredibly disappointed this has happened again. We do not condone any sort of political messages at the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup. Throughout the tournament we have worked with local police forces around the country to prevent this type of protest occurring. After the previous incident we were assured by West Yorkshire Police there would not be repeat of this issue, so we are very dissatisfied it has happened again.”
They assured that the semi-final venues of Manchester and Birmingham had been sorted and no such breach would happen there.
Bradford is believed to have a population of 80000 Mirpuris from Pakistan Occupied Kashmir while Birmingham has around a lakh. When India lost to England, they openly alleged that it had under performed so that Pakistan would be ousted from the tournament.
Bradford to Leeds is short but regular flying zone and many of the residents have private flying licences. The West Yorkshire Police have, so far, not reacted to the incident.
The first plane flew over the venue when India were fielding and the second one encircled the outfield when Rohit Sharma had just 75 on the crease and KL Rahul was scripting a 50.