KARACHI, Oct 3: Pakistani boxer Sohail Baloch, who represented Pakistan at the 50th CISM world boxing championships recently, has gone missing in Warendorf, Germany, Dawn learnt on Tuesday.

The featherweight pugilist, who was one of the seven members of the Pakistan team for the Sept 15 to 24 event, has been missing since Sept 24 after he mysteriously disappeared from his room without informing team officials or his fellow boxers.

Sources said that Sohail who made his Olympic debut at 2004 Athens Olympics, briefly went missing on Sept 21 afternoon before returning on the night of Sept 22.

Sohail, who belongs to Pakistan Air Force (PAF), went off to see a bunch of people living in Germany but was tracked down by German military personnel who were deputed with the Pakistan contingent.

It was from the cellphone of another German serviceman that Sohail had contacted unknown persons living in Germany. When Pakistani officials came to know about Sohail’s disappearance, the German military personnel deputed with the team began to inquire about Sohail’s suspicious calls to his friends.

The German army official helped Pakistani officials by repeatedly dialling the telephone number on which Sohail had called but the person on the other end hung up everytime. Sensing that he has been tracked, Sohail returned quietly on the night of Sept 22.

However, Pakistan team officials were once again in a catch-22 situation when they found Sohail missing from his room on the morning of Sept 24. They came to know about his disappearance after a German official had gone to Sohail’s room to wake him up early morning.

Since Pakistan squad was scheduled to depart for home at 3.00pm and the contingent was required to rush for airport at 7.00am, they were compelled to leave Sohail behind.

Interestingly, Group Capt Sheikh Iftikhar who was the contingent leader and team manager, when contacted on Tuesday, not only refused to comment on the issue, he also denied that he was the team manager. “I have no knowledge about this issue and I was not the team manager,” said the Peshawar-based PAF official.

Sources, however, said that the PAF officials visited Sohail’s residence in Karachi on Monday to inform them about boxer’s disappearance.

Apart from Sohail, other members of the squad were light flyweight Saeed Hassan (Army), flyweight Noman Kareem (Army), bantamweight Noor Badshah (Army), lightweight Sajid Raja (PAF), light-welterweight Faisal Kareem (Army), middleweight Allah Bukhsh (Navy), while Maj Nasir was the team coach.

Of the seven boxers, only Noman won a silver while Saeed clinched a bronze.

This is the second time that an armed forces boxer has slipped abroad. In 2000 Sydney Olympics, light-welterweight Ghulam Shabbir of Pakistan Army vanished from the airport along with welterweight Usmanullah Khan of Wapda.

The two boxers had requested team manager Brig Sajjad Khokhar to give their passports for a shopping tour. The said official, who had accompanied the hockey team as chief manager for the pre-Olympic tour Down Under and later joined as manager of boxing team for Sydney Olympics, provided the two with their passports following which the pair disappeared.

After several incidents of sportsmen disappearing during offshore tours, Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) made it mandatory for the athletes’ parents to fill a surety bond that they will pay one million rupees if their son or daughter slips during a tour abroad.

“I am unaware of any such incident. But if any boxer of armed forces has gone missing abroad, he should face the same treatment,” said a senior PSB official requesting anonymity. “His parents should be asked to pay one million rupees as fine and the boxer should be banned for life. Besides the boxer, the team manager should also be banned for life for his irresponsible behaviour even if he is an armed forces officer.”

“A Pakistani swimmer slipped few years ago in Spain. The swimmer as well as team manager Lt-Col Ahmad Nawaz were banned for life. A case to convert the life ban against Nawaz to five-year ban is pending before the PSB executive committee,” the PSB official told Dawn from Islamabad.