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Azhar attends Owaisi's Iftar in Hyderabad

Former Indian cricket skipper Mohammed Azharuddin made a surprise appearance at an Iftar party hosted by Member of Parliament and Majlis-e-Ittehaadul Muslimeen leader Sultan Salahuddin Owaisi in Hyderabad on Wednesday evening.

Among other VIPs who turned up at the Iftar included Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee president M Satyanarayana Rao, Director General of Police H J Dora and a host of senior Indian Administrative Service and Indian Police Service officials besides a cross-section of the city's elite and Muslim intelligentsia.

Azharuddin, who arrived just before the breaking of roza (fast) at the sprawling Darussalam grounds, was literally mobbed by television crews, press photographers and media persons.

However, he refused to say a word. He went up to a separate enclosure where the chief minister and APCC chief were seated. He greeted Chandrababu Naidu and walked away.

The former skipper, who is in the eye of the storm over match-fixing allegations and the life ban imposed on him by the Board of Control for Cricket in India, looked somewhat haggard. He said that he has been observing the roza.

But he was seen in a relaxed mood. He exchanged pleasantries with the other dignitaries and posed for photographs for the media.

He said he would love to play cricket 'when the ban goes'.

This is Azharuddin's second public appearance in the city in the last one week. On December 14, he had attended a reception hosted at Hotel Taj Banjara to welcome Miss Asia Pacific Diya Mirza, who is a resident of Hyderabad.

"It was really wonderful occasion as I was one of the judges for the Femina Miss India contest and three queens in one year is quite a sweep. Her (Diya Mirza) being a Hyderabadi makes it that much more wonderful and there is this bond. I wish her all the best," Azharuddin was quoted as saying at the party for Diya Mirza.

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