Lahore: The district of Kasur was the most active in participation in the Neighbourhood and Village level of the Punjab Youth Festival 2012 on Saturday where more than 7000 youngsters took part in 13 events. As the festival finished its seven-day old activity, the participation of young boys throughout the province in this sports and general events extravaganza is increasing by around 50,000 every day.
In the all the 36 districts of the province, 6887 blocks of 1632 Sports and Youth Development Councils took part in 521 events. Around 146730 youngsters displayed their skills. Besides in all the sports events including athletics, volleyball, cricket tape ball, tug of war, billiard and badminton they were outstanding in Naat Khani and Qirat also and 31378 had a happy ending. In eight towns of Lahore, competitions among 12 union councils were held in which 113 localities took part in 34 events while out of 2076 participants 1039 won their matches and games. Apart from the Lahore city, the other districts of the provincial capital including Sheikhupura, Kasur, Nankana Sahib to have their share of activities.
At Sheikhupura 2366 youngsters of 130 blocks showed their interest in the festival activities. However, Kasur remained the most active district from Lahore division on the day with 7274 young boys were seen fighting for win but 2707 earned limelight. Interestingly, Pattoki tehsil has a mass influx of 5146 participants. Here all the nine events of the first level of the festival were contested but win was 1643’s fate. In UC 101 and 102, Awais (101) won the 800 metres race while the team of Mohsin, Atif, Ali Faraz and Nabeel Pervaiz took the tug of war event. In badminton, Mohammad Rehan Saddique, Abdul Aqeel and Basharat Ali clinched their matches. Mohammad Ali and Faraz Aman of 101 UC defeated their rivals in billiard competitions. In the same UC, Shah Kamal XI beat Kings XI, China Xi beat Mohsin Xi and Goshi Xi beat Shaheen XI. Mohammad Nauman of 102 UC beat Atif and Umair in tug of war competition. In UC 24 of Shalimar town, Block no 2 had an easy sailing against Block 1 tug of war. Block 5 of the same UC beat Block 3 of UC 24 in cricket. Kaleem of UC 25 Block 3 moved past Rameez in arm wrestling. In Aziz Bhatti Town, UC block 55’s Tasleem Ali and Hassan Ali beat their rivals Ali Sher and Shah Nawaz in straight games in badminton with an identical score of 20-15. In billiard Babar beat Iqbal in UC 55 Block 202 while Yasir beat Saeed in arm wrestling and Ardhaed prevailed over Naeem. Similarly, at Wagha Town, Burki’s Khalil Club overcame 65 Karian in Tug or war and Rehmand Ali if UC 62 won the 100 metre race, Saeed Hassan was second and Hafiz Faraz of the same UC was third. UC 65’s Padana Club beat Hudiayara Club 25-20 in volleyball.
In some of the other districts like Muzaffargarh, there were 71369 participants in 45 events from 200 UCs, 10926 took part in Layyah while 12000 from 36 blocks in just six events in Dera Ghazi Khan.