Omar Khalid/IANS

Karachi, Oct 22: Pakistan's tennis officials Thursday decided to call off two international junior tennis tournaments in capital Islamabad because of growing threat of terrorism.

Rashid Khan, the Pakistan Tennis Federation (PTF) secretary, said in a statement that the back-to-back world ranking tournaments scheduled to get underway from October 25 have been cancelled in the wake of the twin suicide bombing at the International Islamic University earlier this week.

The two tournament were allotted to Pakistan by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) at its annual moot in Madrid last July on the special request of PTF president Dilawar Abbas.

"In view of the current circumstances and as per the statement of Federal Interior Minister Mr. Rahman Malik that Pakistan is now in state of war, the ITF in consultation with PTF on the security issue agreed that running these international tournaments during this troubled time in Islamabad is not advisable as the safety of national and International junior players is very important, hence these tournaments are cancelled," said the PTF secretary.

"PTF has asked ITF that they will jointly review the security situation after six to eight weeks and if it improves and tournament slot is available in ITF schedule then these tournaments can be again organised in Islamabad at some late stage."