Cricket Bloggers of Pakistan

It may be good news for us, that Mohammed Asif is a free man, though he may not be innocent as the Dubai authorities have dropped charges and are deporting him out of the UAE. It may have been due to some official pressures beign applied to lubricate this move Cricinfo reports

The case against Mohammad Asif, who was detained in Dubai on June 1 for suspected possession of an illegal substance, has been dropped by the Dubai Public Prosecution and the fast bowler will be deported soon, according to a report in the Gulf News.

The report quoted the public prosecutor as saying the case was being dropped due to “insignificance”.

“He [Asif] will be deported as soon as the police finalize the procedures,” Mohammad Al Nuaimi, the public prosecutor who handled Asif’s case, told Gulf News. “It is definite that he committed the crime as he was caught red-handed … however in certain cases and for a faster litigation process the Public Prosecution drops a case due to insignificance and deports the suspect.”

It is being reports on various news outlets that Mohammed Asif, Pakistan’s fast bowler has been held up in Dubai on suspicion of being in possession of drugs [opium or hashish].

Cricinfo: Though another senior PCB official, confirming the news of Asif’s detention to Cricinfo earlier, had said that the substance was suspected to be either hashish or opium, Nadeem Akram, a senior board official who is in Dubai handling the case, said officials had not yet identified what the substance is. “It has been sent to a lab for testing but we do not know yet what it is,” Akram, in Dubai since Sunday, told Cricinfo. Akram also stressed that Asif hadn’t yet been arrested and that he had been detained. “No charges have been brought yet.

We wont need to jog our memory too far behind to October 2006 when our fast pacer duo Shoaib Akhtar and Mohd Asif were both involved in a Nandrolone drug scandal lucky for them then that they were able to sneak out of India before all hell broke loose, in Pakistan they were reprimanded with light sentences. Mohd Asif has already disgraced Pakistan once before and if that were not a lesson, they might be messing up with their lives but when it comes to tarnishing the National image then I believe we should have zero tolerance for such repeat offenders.