'Symbolic' punishment to PCB Director on accusation of alleged misconduct

Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has warned the Director of Media and Communication, Sami ul Hasan Burney with a symbolic punishment for allegedly assaulting a colleague and using abusive language.

According to the details, an unfortunate incident happened in the premises of the PCB headquarters last month where Director of Media and Director of Commercial Usman Waheed had a bitter conversation. Sami allegedly pushed Usman and tried to assault him.

PCB appointed lawyers from a law firm to hear the case and they completed their work by submitting the report to Chairman PCB Ramiz Raja.

As per sources, Sami was found guilty of using abusive language but the charge of deliberate attack was rejected despite watching the CCTV footage. Sami also had hired a famous lawyer to defend himself in the case.

The inquiry committee wrote in its report that this is not a trivial incident and that using unethical language during working hours in the office negatively affects the environment.

In the committee's report, this was not a single incident of this kind but part of a series of aggressive behavior. Three previous PCB employees, who were not directly related to the complainant, also told about this behavior as witnesses.

Therefore, the committee recommended the suspension of Sami from employment for seven working days without pay. The punishment will be in effect for 52 weeks, which means that his behavior will be monitored during this time, and more severe action will be taken in case of further violations. 

It is recorded that both parties could not produce any witness to substantiate their claim in the allegation of assault outside the board room in the office. The CCTV footage of the incident was reviewed, again and again, the victim official claimed that the threat made on 20th October was carried out on 24th, it was a deliberate and premeditated attack; he was pushed and knocked down. On the other hand, Sami said he went to Usman to apologise for his previous behavior.

The committee also feels that if it was a deliberate attack, it would not have been carried out in the presence of many colleagues in the common corridor, they even tried to lift the complainant from the ground, so the charge of attack is not proved.

Sources said that a senior PCB officer (not Rameez Raja) was very active in defending Sami, an influential governing board member also played an important role in this regard.

It must be noted that Sami Birni has also worked in media department for ICC in the past, Faisal Hasnain, the current CEO of PCB, was also employed in the same organization at that time.

In order to know more details regarding the case, when this correspondent contacted both directors, the duo did not consider it appropriate to give any reply even after more than 24 have hours passed.