20 years on, Syed Modi's family still awaits justice

GORAKHPUR: The city remembers the Arjuna awardee and eight-time national badminton champion Syed Modi, who brought glory to the country with gold medals in Australian Open and Commonwealth Games and bronze in Asian Games.
On July 28, 1988, he was murdered in Lucknow as he came out of KD Singh 'Babu' Stadium after practice.
A large number of players and coaches, senior politician and president of Akhil Bhartiya Loktantric Congress Party Hari Shankar Tiwari and Syed Modi's elder brother Syed Baqar Haider paid floral tribute at the tomb of Syed Modi in Gorakhour on Thursday."Every year, I pay tribute to the great son of the soil. We can never forget Syed Modi," Tiwari said.
Syed Baqar Haider, the elder brother of Syed Modi and also a badminton player said that even after 28 years, he feels the pain of parting with his brother. Modi was the youngest among the six siblings.
"They killed my brother and the saddest part is that the police and CBI were not able to find the murderer. He is still away from the hands of law and I feel we didn't get justice ," Baqar said. "I want to organise a national level tournament in his name but we don't get support from anywhere. We wish to open a badminton institute in his name but it is not an easy task for us. We are organising a district level championship and forms are available on www.syedmodi.blogspot.com.," he added.
His actual name was Syed Mehndi but when he went to school, his name was registered as Syed Modi by mistake and after that he remained Syed Modi, Baqar recalled.