Organisers shorten National Under-25 Chess Championship in Kashmir

The recent socio-political situation in Jammu & Kashmir has inadvertently affected various sporting activities across the nation and the region itself. A recent TOI report revealed that the organisers of the National Under-25 Chess Championship which was being held in Kashmir had to be cut short after the Indian government scraped Article 370 August 5.

“We got information from local government sources on the night of August 4 about the possibility of section 144 of CrPC being imposed. Tourists had been evacuated the day before from Kashmir. But Jammu was okay till then,” All J&K Chess Association president Atul Kumar Gupta was quoted as saying by TOI. 

The prize distribution ceremony was held shortly after the end of the matches and players were safely escorted to their respective hotel rooms and given enough time to pack up before they could leave. 

“It was a unique situation as section 144 bars more than five people from assembling at a single location and we were nearly 150 (players and parents). We arranged for vehicles to drive them to the airport or railway station as our venue, a school complex, was about 2-3 km away from the city,” Gupta concluded.