On the surface, they could well pass off for a team from Punjab. Ten turbaned Sikhs (all coloured white) — the only one who isn’t wears a helmet. Scratch the surface and you find that eight of their contingent — the Jammu and Kashmir Police — are from the same little town Singhpura in Baramullah district.That’s where the co-incidences end though. On Tuesday at the BHA Gold Cup, they announced their arrival with a clinical 4-0 drubbing of local outfit Mumbai Port Trust.‘‘It’s entirely a co-incidence that most of the players are Sikhs,’’ affirms team mangager Jameel Mir. ‘‘It’s not like we don’t have non-Sikhs in the team, but the playing eleven is mostly made up of them.’’ Of the 18 members that make the contingent, 15 are Sikhs, the remaining three include manager Mir.Those who saw the team play at the recently concluded All-India Police Hockey Championship will vouch for the fact that these guys play with a lot of heart. They went down, albeit gallantly, to a star-studded Punjab Police side in the semi-final of the tourney.J&K Police have had no competition in their state, they have been state champions for a long time. ‘‘We are here because we need to play against quality sides if we need to improve our game. We requested BHA to invite us here and thankfully our performance at the recent Police Cup was noticed by BHA and here we are,’’ says Mir, an inspector with the force.How difficult is it being policemen in most strife-torn state in the country? ‘‘We don’t have to go for active duty, we have been drafted to play hockey,’’ says skipper Inderpal Singh, a sub-inspector. Only during emergencies or during election duty do they have to do regular policework.‘‘It obviously is disturbing, but people are so used to living under constant threat, life goes on,’’ says Singh.‘‘We face a huge disadvantage because we are the only professional side in our state. We are hoping more State Federations invite us to play,’’ says Mir.Mir would like to consider his boys as the ‘‘underdogs’’ here what with the biggies Indian Airlines, Indian Oil and Air-India participating. ‘‘We are looking forward to playing Indian Airlines on Thursday.’’Article 370 of the Constitution forbids the state from importing talent from other states. However, the team has a few players who have attended India camps and also played for India — left-in Gurjeet Singh (25), who slammed three goals in Tuesday’s match, represented the country at the Four-Nations Tournament in Moscow in 2001 and was recently promoted head constable.
