Now a fatwah angle to Woolmer murder case!

(Bob Woolmer's body reaches Cape Town, at last; Photo: AP)


Hired hitman, match-fixers (not of the matrimonial kind), Al-qaeda, Dawood Ibrahim, snake venom, strangulation, poison…now add a ‘fatwah’ angle to Bob Woolmer’s mysterious murder in his Kingston hotel.

Pervez Mir, Pakistan media manager in the World Cup, told BBC Panorama programme that Woolmer was unhappy that Inzamam’s boys prayed more and played less. Woolmer never wanted to coach a side teeming with devout Tableeqi Jamaat followers.

Mir’s complaint about the players’ over-religiousness earned the poor man a fatwah and forced him to flee Pakistan. Mir claims, Woolmer too would have invited a fatwah had he gone public with his feelings on the players.

Mir went on to recall an incident to prove his point:

"A CD was being played which was a Tableeqi CD 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 Bob."