By IANS, London : In an interesting revelation, deputy police commissioner of Jamaica, Mark Shields said that Pakistan coach Bob Woolmer was murdered by an outsider and the assailant was not from the Caribbean.
“The difference between Woolmer’s murder and most of these is that Jamaican killers tend to use knives or guns. The fact that Woolmer was strangled has led the police here to conclude that his killer came from outside Jamaica,” Shields was quoted as saying in BBC’s ‘Panorama’ programme Monday.
Shields said that March 18, the day Woolmer was found dead in his hotel room, nine murder cases had been registered across Jamaica.
Meanwhile, Pakistan team’s media manager in the World Cup Pervaiz Mir during the programme revealed that the 58-year-old Woolmer felt players were focusing more on religious activities than their game.
Mir also said that Woolmer could have even invited a ‘fatwah’ (religious edict) had he gone public with his feelings.
Mir, now in London, said that captain Inzamam-ul Haq and his teammates prayed more and played less, which irritated some quarters back home and he had to flee Pakistan after a ‘fatwah’ was issued against him.
To put into perspective, the media manager recalled an incident saying that: “A CD by Tablighi Jamaat (group of Islamic preachers) was being played in the team bus and Bob, who was sitting behind me, said ‘why don’t you tell them to stop? If they want to listen to that they could on their iPods or personal devices’, and he thought that he shouldn’t be subjected to all that and I agreed with him.”
“He wasn’t particularly pleased when players were going out to say their prayers in the middle of the game… And a substitute was coming in and then again… And this continued. He was totally against it,” Mir said.
The BBC programme also said that Inzamam and some players had become members of the Jamaat and that they listened to religious prayers and sermons even while travelling with the rest of the squad on the team bus.